The offline software framework of the pierre auger observatory

Abstract

Abstract-The Pierre Auger Observatory is designed to unveil the nature and the origins of the highest energy cosmic rays. The large and geographically dispersed collaboration of physicists and the wide-ranging collection of simulation and reconstruction tasks pose some special challenges for the offline analysis software. We have designed and implemented a general purpose framework which allows collaborators to contribute algorithms and sequencing instructions to build up the variety of applications they require. The framework includes machinery to manage these user codes, to organize the abundance of user-contributed configuration files, to facilitate multi-format file handling, and to provide access to event and time-dependent detector information which can reside in various data sources. A number of utilities are also provided, including a novel geometry package which allows manipulation of abstract geometrical objects independent of coordinate system choice. The framework is implemented in C++, and takes advantage of object oriented design and common open source tools, while keeping the user side simple enough for C++ novices to learn in a reasonable time. The distribution system incorporates unit and acceptance testing in order to support rapid development of both the core framework and contributed user code.

Extraction of the muon signals recorded with the surface detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory using recurrent neural networks

“…The energy range covered by simulations spans from 10 18.5 eV to 10 20.2 eV for zenith angles up to 60 • . Each shower is simulated with the CORSIKA software [18] using the EPOS-LHC hadronic interaction model [19] and then reconstructed using the Off line software of the Pierre Auger Collaboration [20]. Among those simulated events, we select those that fulfill the quality condition that the station measuring the highest signal has to be surrounded by six operating neighbours, thus avoiding events that fall at the edges of the array.…”

A development environment for visual physics analysis

“…Users can freely choose to program their modules in C++ or Python and combine them in the analysis chain. C++ is the de facto standard in HEP and astroparticle physics [10][11][12][13]. Python is a widely used scripting language in science [13,28], which is often used to glue together code from different programming languages like C and Fortran [24].…”

“…In the field of high energy physics, a graphical analysis development environment constitutes a new approach. Most high energy physics collaborations provide dedicated software frameworks for different tasks ranging from reconstruction to user analysis [10][11][12]. While these frameworks attempt to provide solutions for multiple aspects of data processing, the VISPA environment is designed as a standalone application dedicated to high-level analysis with frequent development cycles using a reduced data format.…”

Testing the surface detector simulation for the Pierre Auger Observatory

“…The Auger tank simulation, which is a part of the Auger DPA Offline package [3], is based on the well established GEANT4 package. A dedicated module, called G4Fast, has been implemented to reduce the computing time.…”