1. A prototype for the Real-Time analysis of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
- Author
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Jose Luis Contreras, Juan José Rodríguez-Vázquez, Andrea Bulgarelli, Simon Rosen, Raquel de los Reyes, A. Aboudan, Paola Grandi, S. Buson, Gino Tosti, Andrea Zoli, Domenico Beneventano, Stefan Ohm, Gernot Maier, Sonia Bergamaschi, Vito Conforti, Catherine Boisson, Louis Antonelli, Phil Evans, Martino Marisaldi, Karl Kosack, Giovanni Lamanna, Jürgen Knödlseder, Adriano De Rosa, R. Graciani, Jim Hinton, Nadine Neyroud, Vincenzo Testa, Amanda Weinstein, Denis Bastieri, Alessandro Tacchini, Etienne Lyard, Giovanni De Cesare, Eleonora Torresi, Saverio Lombardi, J. P. Dumm, Lucy Fortson, J. P. Osborne, Giuseppe Malaguti, Matthias Fuessling, Jean Jacquemier, Fulvio Gianotti, Alessandro Carosi, Brian Humensky, Jerzy Burkowski, M. Trifoglio, Luciano Nicastro, Valentina Fioretti, and Matteo Interlandi
- Subjects
Cherenkov Telescope Array ,Pipeline (computing) ,Interface (computing) ,Real-time computing ,Cherenkov telescopes ,gamma-ray flares ,GPU ,Intel/Phi ,real-time Analysis ,science alert system ,VHE gamma-ray astronomy ,01 natural sciences ,7. Clean energy ,Software ,Observatory ,0103 physical sciences ,11. Sustainability ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,Throughput (business) ,Physics ,010308 nuclear & particles physics ,business.industry ,Astronomy ,Computer data storage ,Software design pattern ,Física nuclear ,DataBase ,Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes ,Observatories ,Algorithms ,Telescopes ,Computer hardware ,Data storage ,Gamma radiation ,Interfaces ,business - Abstract
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory will be one of the biggest ground-based very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray observatory. CTA will achieve a factor of 10 improvement in sensitivity from some tens of GeV to beyond 100 TeV with respect to existing telescopes. The CTA observatory will be capable of issuing alerts on variable and transient sources to maximize the scientific return. To capture these phenomena during their evolution and for effective communication to the astrophysical community, speed is crucial. This requires a system with a reliable automated trigger that can issue alerts immediately upon detection of gamma-ray flares. This will be accomplished by means of a Real-Time Analysis (RTA) pipeline, a key system of the CTA observatory. The latency and sensitivity requirements of the alarm system impose a challenge because of the anticipated large data rate, between 0.5 and 8 GB/s. As a consequence, substantial efforts toward the optimization of high-throughput computing service are envisioned. For these reasons our working group has started the development of a prototype of the Real-Time Analysis pipeline. The main goals of this prototype are to test: (i) a set of frameworks and design patterns useful for the inter-process communication between software processes running on memory; (ii) the sustainability of the foreseen CTA data rate in terms of data throughput with different hardware (e.g. accelerators) and software configurations, (iii) the reuse of non-real-time algorithms or how much we need to simplify algorithms to be compliant with CTA requirements, (iv) interface issues between the different CTA systems. In this work we focus on goals (i) and (ii).
- Published
- 2014