The UK is building and running a distributed computing service to handle the torrent of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This matters because the LHC’s particle collisions generate vast amounts of information that cannot be processed or stored at a single site. Without a coordinated computing grid, UK physicists would be unable to analyse the data needed to test fundamental theories of particle physics—such as the nature of dark matter or the properties of the Higgs boson. The project delivers the UK’s commitment to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, ensuring that British researchers can compete internationally in exploiting the LHC’s unique physics potential. If successful, this infrastructure will sustain high-throughput distributed computing for the UK particle physics community, underpinning discoveries that deepen our understanding of matter and the universe. This is primarily fundamental science; there is no immediate practical application. However, similar large-scale distributed computing systems have historically led to advances in data handling, cloud technologies, and network protocols that now underpin everyday digital services.
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This proposal, submitted in response to the 2014 invitation from STFC, aims to provide and operate a computing Grid for the exploitation of LHC data in the UK. The success of the current GridPP Collaboration will be built upon, and the UK's response to production of LHC data in the period April 2016 to March 2020 will be to ensure that there is a sustainable infrastructure providing "Distributed Computing for Particle Physics" We propose to operate a distributed high throughput computational service as the main mechanism for delivering very large-scale computational resources to the UK particle physics community. This foundation will underpin the success and increase the discovery potential of UK physicists. We will operate a production-quality service, delivering robustness, scale and functionality. The proposal is fully integrated with international projects and we must exploit the opportunity to capitalise on the UK leadership already established in several areas. The Particle Physics distributed computing service will increasingly be integrated with national and international initiatives. The project will be managed across various domains and will deliver the UK's commitment to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) and ensure that worldwide activities directly benefit the UK. By 2015, the UK Grid infrastructure will have expanded in size to 50,000 cores, with more than 35 PetaBytes of storage. This will enable the UK to exploit, in an internationally competitive way, the unique physics potential of the LHC.
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