Snowmass 2013 Computing Frontier: Intensity Frontier

TL;DR

This paper surveys the computing needs of the U.S. Intensity Frontier particle physics experiments, highlighting their diverse requirements for simulation, data processing, and analysis, and projecting future demands within the Snowmass 2013 context.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive qualitative assessment of the current and upcoming computing requirements for the Intensity Frontier experiments, informing future technological development.

Findings

Significant computing demands for simulation and data analysis

Diverse scales of data output and experiment sizes

Projected increase in computational needs for future experiments

Abstract

The Intensity Frontier (IF) is a primary focus of the U.S.-based particle physics program. It encompasses a large spectrum of physics, including quark flavor physics, charged lepton processes, neutrinos, baryon number violation, new light weakly-coupled particles, and nucleons, nuclei and atoms. There are many experiments, a range of scales in data output and throughput, and a wide range in the number of experimenters. The experiments, projects and theory in this area all require demanding computing capabilities and technologies. The IF experiments have significant computing requirements for simulation, theory and modeling, beam line and experiment design, triggers and DAQ, online monitoring, event reconstruction and processing, and physics analysis. We have conducted a qualitative survey of the current and near-term future experiments in the IF to understand the computing demands of this area and their expected evolution. This report details the expected computing requirements for the IF in the context of the Snowmass Community Summer Study 2013.