sPHENIX EMCal discussion

[John Haggerty <haggerty AT bnl.gov>]

With the successful outcome of the Science Review last week thanks to 
the excellent presentations by Jamie, Dave, Tony, Mike, and Dennis, and 
reports of a positive reception in the NSAC Long Range Plan, it is clear 
that we are about to enter the next phase of developing the sPHENIX 
proposal in which it will be necessary to demonstrate that the detector 
we propose to build will be able to deliver the physics we propose to 
address.  Even though sPHENIX builds on the PHENIX experiment and 
collaboration, this seems to be a good time to break some of the 
connections to old forms of communication and documentation for a new 
experiment going forward, so this message will describe them.

MAILING LISTS

The listservers have provided the central forum for discussion of the 
experiment, so the following new lists have been created exclusively for 
the use of sPHENIX discussion.  Everyone on phenix-nextmid-l and 
phenix-nextfor-l have been subscribed to these lists, so no action is 
necessary if you want to continue to send and receive messages on them. 
 You can unsubscribe (or tell your friends to subscribe) by going to 
the admin pages of the lists:

> https://lists.bnl.gov/mailman/listinfo/sphenix-tracking-l
> https://lists.bnl.gov/mailman/listinfo/sphenix-emcal-l
> https://lists.bnl.gov/mailman/listinfo/sphenix-hcal-l
> https://lists.bnl.gov/mailman/listinfo/sphenix-electronics-l
> https://lists.bnl.gov/mailman/listinfo/sphenix-software-l

For completeness, there is another list which is somewhat more 
specialized which has a somewhat more limited subscription list:

> https://lists.bnl.gov/mailman/listinfo/sphenix-magnet-l

I used this message to emcal-l and hcal-l to test the delivery.

MEETING AGENDAS

There is an sPHENIX category on the BNL Indico page which we should use 
as much as possible for future meetings:

> https://indico.bnl.gov/categoryDisplay.py?categId=65

WIKI

There is a new Wiki which we should use for documenting the detector 
hardware and software:

> https://wiki.bnl.gov/sPHENIX

You need to log in to see anything except the top pages; the username is 
sphenix and there is no password.

Unfortunately, there is no centralized authentication scheme for this 
wiki yet (which is operated by ITD);
we added a small list of users to get started; if you are subscribed, 
you should find an email a few weeks
ago from Dave Cortijo (dcortijo AT bnl.gov) which will allow you to edit 
the wiki.  If you don't have an account,
please email Hyon-Joo (kehayias AT bnl.gov)
or the ITD Service Desk (itdhelp AT bnl.gov) if she's not available.

There is a link to the Indico agenda under meetings, and to a Google 
Calendar of sPHENIX meetings.  The direct link to the Google calendar is 
this:

> https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=rjmgqjsdcihldomnvrcc5ccue8%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York

DOCUMENTS

We have started a document database here:

> https://docdb.sphenix.bnl.gov/

with Tom Throwe's help.  When you go to that site, you'll get a message 
about the security certificate, which arises from
self-signed certificates used on Physics Department servers--it is safe 
to click through the dialog.  docdb has the concept
of groups, and we have started with one group--sphenix.  You'll need 
secure credentials, which can be constructed by
combining the name of the experiment the solenoid was built for (all 
lower case) with the building number we envision
operating the magnet in sPHENIX.  You can add yourself as an author.

REDMINE

I'll mention for completeness that Dave set up an instance of Redmine, 
which can be used for documentation and issue tracking.  It doesn't seem 
a great match for our needs to me, but maybe someone out there would be 
interested in working with it:

> https://redmine.racf.bnl.gov/phenix/projects/sphenixpm

SOFTWARE

Chris Pinkenburg posted last week the creation of a new software 
universe for sPHENIX; I'll also include his description of that here:

> sPHENIX now has it's own afs areas, setup scripts, code repository and
> nightly build. To get the sPHENIX setup source the sphenix_setup.csh 
script:
>
> source /opt/sphenix/core/bin/sphenix_setup.csh
>
> sets you up to work on sPHENIX (use -n to switch from a PHENIX setup -
> and vice versa). Just like for PHENIX, OFFLINE_MAIN points to the new
> build. The code repository resides on githup - the checkout command is
>
> git clone https://github.com/sPHENIX-Collaboration/coresoftware.git
>
> The code base contains everything needed to run sPHENIX simulations as
> well as analyzing test beam data More on all this on Fridays simulation
> meeting (with documentation coming soon to a wiki near you).

By the way, it is expected that next week's sCore week on Monday/Tuesday 
May 11/12 will have a software tutorial component,
and hopefully we can add those slides or video to the wiki.

CDR

One of the most essential next steps is to write a Conceptual Design 
Report which will describe in detail the detector we propose to build 
and demonstrate that it will be capable of making the physics 
measurements we envision.

We're thinking to created the document on Overleaf (the site formerly 
known as writelatex):

> https://www.overleaf.com/

The CDR as it currently stands is here:

> https://www.overleaf.com/2657127qghjbm

but we're currently investigating with Overleaf our financial obligations.

Thanks to Chris, Martin, Achim, and Don for beta testing that they can 
reach these sites, but of course any errors are mine.  If you didn't 
receive this message and think you should have, send me an email.

--
John Haggerty
email: haggerty AT bnl.gov
cell: 631 741 3358