A Core Ontology for Particle Accelerators: Interoperable Data and Workflows Across Facilities

TL;DR

This paper introduces a shared core ontology for particle accelerators that enables interoperable data and workflows across different facilities, promoting reusable tools and semantic consistency.

Contribution

It presents a lightweight, standard-based ontology and profile system that maps local conventions into a shared vocabulary for enhanced interoperability.

Findings

Demonstrated interoperability on two beamline segments

Single semantic query works across multiple knowledge bases

Supports both sparse and rich descriptions using W3C standards

Abstract

We propose a small, shared core ontology for particle accelerators that provides a semantic backbone for interoperable data and workflows across facilities. The ontology names key device types, signals, parameters, and regions, and relates them through explicit properties (e.g., hasSetpoint, hasReadback, partOf). Each site contributes a lightweight facility bundle, a profile that maps local conventions into the shared vocabulary plus data slices that instantiate those mappings, without renaming channel addresses or changing existing systems. Using standard W3C technologies, the approach supports both sparse and rich descriptions. We demonstrate the idea on two beamline segments at different laboratories. A single semantic query is expressed once and evaluated against both knowledge bases, returning the locally correct PVs. The ontology thereby enables not only portable workflows but also interoperable data, since measurements and catalogs are annotated with shared semantics rather than facility-specific names. The framework complements, rather than replaces, existing middle layers and lattice/data standards, and it creates a stable foundation for reusable tools and agentic workflows.