Real-time data processing in the ALICE High Level Trigger at the LHC

ALICE Collaboration

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

At the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, atomic nuclei are collided at ultra-relativistic energies. Many final-state particles are produced in each collision and their properties are measured by the ALICE detector. The detector signals induced by the produced particles are digitized leading to data rates that are in excess of 48 GB/s. The ALICE High Level Trigger (HLT) system pioneered the use of FPGA- and GPU-based algorithms to reconstruct charged-particle trajectories and reduce the data size in real time. The results of the reconstruction of the collision events, available online, are used for high level data quality and detector-performance monitoring and real-time time-dependent detector calibration. The online data compression techniques developed and used in the ALICE HLT have more than quadrupled the amount of data that can be stored for offline event processing.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)25-48
Number of pages24
JournalComputer Physics Communications
Volume242
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2019

Funding

The ALICE Collaboration would like to thank all its engineers and technicians for their invaluable contributions to the construction of the experiment and the CERN accelerator teams for the outstanding performance of the LHC complex. The ALICE Collaboration gratefully acknowledges the resources and support provided by all Grid centres and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) collaboration. The ALICE Collaboration acknowledges the following funding agencies for their support in building and running the ALICE detector: A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep) and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil; Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), China; Croatian Science Foundation and Ministry of Science and Education, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research — Natural Sciences, the Carlsberg Foundation and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia; Centro Fermi — Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI and Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education and National Science Centre, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Romanian National Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russian Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA), Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America. We thank AMD and ASUS for their support in commissioning the compute farm. The ALICE Collaboration would like to thank all its engineers and technicians for their invaluable contributions to the construction of the experiment and the CERN accelerator teams for the outstanding performance of the LHC complex. The ALICE Collaboration gratefully acknowledges the resources and support provided by all Grid centres and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) collaboration. The ALICE Collaboration acknowledges the following funding agencies for their support in building and running the ALICE detector: A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep) and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil; Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), China; Croatian Science Foundation and Ministry of Science and Education, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research - Natural Sciences, the Carlsberg Foundation and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia; Centro Fermi - Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI and Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education and National Science Centre, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Romanian National Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russian Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA), Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America. We thank AMD and ASUS for their support in commissioning the compute farm.

FundersFunder number
Austrian Academy of Sciences and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung
Centro Fermi - Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions
Helsinki Institute of Physics
Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia
Institute of Atomic Physics and Romanian National Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, Romania
Ministry of Communications and High Technologies
Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic
NRU
National Nuclear Research Center
State Committee of Science and World Federation
Turkish Atomic Energy Agency
University Grants Commission, Government of India
Yerevan Physics Institute
National Science Foundation
U.S. Department of Energy
Nuclear Physics
Natur og Univers, Det Frie Forskningsråd
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology
Österreichische Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung
Türkiye Atom Enerjisi Kurumu
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
CERN
Central Intelligence Agency
Office of the Higher Education Commission
Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science
Science and Technology Facilities Council1843572
Science and Technology Facilities Council
National Research Foundation
Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India
University Grants Commission
Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science17H01122
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Danmarks Grundforskningsfond
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a Tělovýchovy
Russian Foundation for Basic Research
Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Carlsbergfondet
Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología
Ministerstvo školstva, vedy, výskumu a športu Slovenskej republiky
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
General Secretariat for Research and Technology
Haridus- ja Teadusministeerium
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information
National Research Foundation of Korea
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse
National Science and Technology Development Agency
Narodowe Centrum Nauki
Suranaree University of Technology
Vetenskapsrådet
Hrvatska Zaklada za Znanost
Ministerstwo Edukacji i Nauki
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Norges Forskningsråd
Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives
Russian Science Foundation
Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología
Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung
Nemzeti Kutatási Fejlesztési és Innovációs Hivatal
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules
Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute"
Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology

    Keywords

    • FPGA
    • GPU

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Real-time data processing in the ALICE High Level Trigger at the LHC'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this