1. The Vanderbilt Effort in CMS Vanderbilt University
S. Victoria Greene,
Charles F. Maguire,
and Julia Velkovska
Vanderbilt University
Version V2, April 10
9:43 MDT
April 10, 2010
CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe

2. CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe
Group Overview: I
Personnel
Faculty and CMS Service Roles
Vicki Greene (20% CMS, 80% PHENIX), responsible for VU CMS Data Center (next slides)
Charlie Maguire (80% CMS, 20% PHENIX), responsible for Off-Line Computing
Julia Velkovska (50% CMS, 50% PHENIX), responsible for Data Quality Monitoring
Research Associates and Locations
Michael Issah (100% CMS), at Vanderbilt
Pelin Kurt (100% CMS), at CERN
Shengli Huang (100% PHENIX), at RHIC but takes active interest in CMS discussions
Graduate Students and Status (Three students committed 100% to CMS-HI)
Eric Appelt (100% CMS), full-time RA finishing 2nd year, expect Ph.D. qualifier in Jan. 2011
Ben Snook (100% CMS), TA finishing 2nd year, RA in Summer 2010, full-time RA in January 2011
Shengquan Tuo (100% CMS), TA finishing 1st year, RA Summer 2010, full-time RA in Jan. 2011
Ron Belmont and Dillon Roach (100% PHENIX), 4th year full-time RAs, some CMS service work
New entering graduate student (100% PHENIX), RA Summer 2010 at RHIC, TA in Fall 2010
April 10, 2010
CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe

3. CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe
Group Overview: II
Service Support
Vicki Greene for Vanderbilt's CMS Data Center
$110,00 project funded by Vanderbilt University Dean's and Provost's offices
Intended to support the group's roles in DQM and Off-Line computing
Consists of 5 data stations, each with 2 CPUs driving 2 monitors, occupying ~30 m2
Three large wall mounted LCD screens carrying direct feeds from CERN (and FNAL eventually)
Direct audio-visual links with CERN and other CMS data centers are planned
Vanderbilt's CMS Data Center was commissioned on March 30, the LHC 7 TeV Media Day Located in a high-traffic, ground floor site in the Physics Department, 3 "picture windows"
Julia Velkovska for CMS-HI Data Quality Monitoring
Spent her AY sabbatical at CERN, taking active participation with DQM shifts there
Hired research associate Pelin Kurt in December to take lead on-site DQM role Pelin has been whipping the DQM software at CERN into shape for processing HI events
Intend to start DQM monitoring of the pp run as of May, to be ready for the HI run in November
Local support of DQM monitoring from Issah, Tuo, and undergraduate students, HEP group
Charlie Maguire for CMS-HI Offline Computing
For past two years I have coordinated all efforts for developing the off-line computing proposals
Assembled an effective working support staff at Vanderbilt's large ACCRE computing center
Status of the computing project will be given in a separate presentation
Local group operational support from Issah, Appelt, Snook, Melo (HEP group), Sheldon (HEP)
April 10, 2010
CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe

4. The CMS Data Center at Vanderbilt
View of far wall
2 data stations with beam info
2 large LCDs
with CERN feeds Pictured are James Trippe Eric Appelt
Julia Velkovska
April 10, 2010
CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe

5. The CMS Data Center at Vanderbilt
Right wall view
1 data station with beam info
Partial view of
5 seat round table Pictured are James Trippe
Julia Velkovska
Eric Appelt
Ben Snook
Ron Belmont
April 10, 2010
CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe

6. The CMS Data Center at Vanderbilt
Far wall view
Much beam and detector diagnostic data is being fed from CERN Pictured from back is Dillon Roach
Pelin Kurt at CERN is visible in EVO display insert on right LCD screen
Left wall view
2 data stations with 4 monitors
One overhead LCD with CERN feed Pictured is Prof. Will Johns of
HEP group (Pixel Detector) working at the conference table
April 10, 2010
CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe

7. CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe
Group Overview: III
Physics Interests
Correlations and Flow
This is the predominant ``first publication" physics interest of the Vanderbilt goup, with Julia leading the Correlations and Flow PInG
Michael Issah is doing intensive studies of the cumulant analysis method of flow, which work much better for CMS detector than it did for the limited acceptance PHENIX detector
Shenquan Tuo is studying the Lee-Yang method of flow analysis, and has already achieved new results. First year student who has become productive extremely fast
Eric Appelt, who is an acknowledged expert in the PAT system, is now supporting the flow analyses with specialized tracking efficiency studies. This follows his exploratory work on looking at the possibility of a D-meson flow study in HI events. He found that the current HI software tracking software kills displaced vertex tracks, i.e. not a first-year physics result.
High pT Jets
Pelin Kurt's Ph.D. thesis was on a novel way to reconstruct jets with more physics content than previously possible. She has an already approved analysis topic in CMS, and is working with the pp people to complete this study. The reconstuction method should prove fruitful in Hi events.
Pelin will continue to show her work in the High pT PInG
High pT p0 RAA (pace of future work in pp depends on Rome-Cal Tech groups)
As part of a directed study graduate physics course, TA Ben Snook was assigned the project of learning the p0 reconstruction software in CMS, used by the ECAL calibrations group
He has succeeded spectacularly well, and he is even showing the ECAL group how to fix their software to work in the latest versions of CMSSW. He can get the peaks in the 900 GeV data
We have etablished that there is a viable p0 signal in HYDJET events at all centralities, and the CMS ECal posseses an order of magnitude statistics advantage over ALICE for pT = 2 – 8 GeV/c
April 10, 2010
CMS-HI-US Meeting at Santa Fe