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Thomas McCauley

Publications and source records attributed to Thomas McCauley.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Data Preservation in High Energy Physics: Global Report 2026

This document summarizes the contributions to the 5th DPHEP workshop March 5-6, 2026, CERN, and reflects the advancements since 2024, as well as future milestones and tendencies. Impressive progress in HEP data preservation is observed. Legacy data revival was showcased through successful reanalysis of archived data using contemporary methods, demonstrating the long-term scientific value of preservation. Sustainability challenges were noted, emphasizing the need for long-term funding and institutional support to maintain data preservation infrastructure, particularly for legacy experiments transitioning to archival modes. Innovative transverse projects display constant progress towards common technologies for a robust and transferrable DP. In particular, there is a clear shift toward automation, with increasing use of AI and machine learning for data curation, metadata extraction, and workflow optimization. Open science momentum is growing, with wider adoption of FAIR principles and open data policies, and experiments committing to public releases.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2026

Open LHC Monte Carlo Event Generation

The LHC physics programme involves a vast amount of Monte Carlo event simulation. This paper reviews current efforts towards sharing the generated events as Open Data. Open Event Generation helps reduce duplication of effort and resource consumption, and benefits the whole High Energy Physics community. We give examples of use cases and user experiences, discuss financial and environmental savings, and suggest future directions.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2025

Recommendations for Best Practices for Data Preservation and Open Science in HEP

These recommendations are the result of reflections by scientists and experts who are, or have been, involved in the preservation of high-energy physics data. The work has been done under the umbrella of the Data Lifecycle panel of the International Committee of Future Accelerators (ICFA), drawing on the expertise of a wide range of stakeholders. A key indicator of success in the data preservation efforts is the long-term usability of the data. Experience shows that achieving this requires providing a rich set of information in various forms, which can only be effectively collected and preserved during the period of active data use. The recommendations are intended to be actionable by the indicated actors and specific to the particle physics domain. They cover a wide range of actions, many of which are interdependent. These dependencies are indicated within the recommendations and can be used as a road map to guide implementation efforts. These recommendations are best accessed and viewed through the web application, see https://icfa-data-best-practices.app.cern.ch/

hep-ex↗
arXiv2025

Reinterpretation and preservation of data and analyses in HEP

Data from particle physics experiments are unique and are often the result of a very large investment of resources. Given the potential scientific impact of these data, which goes far beyond the immediate priorities of the experimental collaborations that obtain them, it is imperative that the collaborations and the wider particle physics community publish and preserve sufficient information to ensure that this impact can be realised, now and into the future. The information to be published and preserved includes the algorithms, statistical information, simulations and the recorded data. This publication and preservation requires significant resources, and should be a strategic priority with commensurate planning and resource allocation from the earliest stages of future facilities and experiments.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2025

Data Preservation in High Energy Physics

Data preservation significantly increases the scientific output of high-energy physics experiments during and after data acquisition. For new and ongoing experiments, the careful consideration of long-term data preservation in the experimental design contributes to improving computational efficiency and strengthening the scientific activity in HEP through Open Science methodologies. This contribution is based on 15 years of experience of the DPHEP collaboration in the field of data preservation and focuses on aspects relevant for the strategic programming of particle physics in Europe: the preparation of future programs using data sets preserved from previous similar experiments (e.g. HERA for EIC), and the use of LHC data long after the end of the data taking. The lessons learned from past collider experiments and recent developments open the way to a number of recommendations for the full exploitation of the investments made in large HEP experiments.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2018

HEP Software Foundation Community White Paper Working Group --- Visualization

In modern High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments visualization of experimental data has a key role in many activities and tasks across the whole data chain: from detector development to monitoring, from event generation to reconstruction of physics objects, from detector simulation to data analysis, and all the way to outreach and education. In this paper, the definition, status, and evolution of data visualization for HEP experiments will be presented. Suggestions for the upgrade of data visualization tools and techniques in current experiments will be outlined, along with guidelines for future experiments. This paper expands on the summary content published in the HSF \emph{Roadmap} Community White Paper~\cite{HSF-CWP-2017-01}

physics.comp-ph↗
arXiv2016

$S^1$-equivariant Chern-Weil constructions on loop space

We study the existence of $S^1$-equivariant characteristic classes on certain natural infinite rank bundles over the loop space $LM$ of a manifold $M$. We discuss the different $S^1$-equivariant cohomology theories in the literature and clarify their relationships. We attempt to use $S^1$-equivariant Chern-Weil techniques to construct $S^1$-equivariant characteristic classes. The main result is the construction of a sequence of $S^1$-equivariant characteristic classes on the total space of the bundles, but these classes do not descend to the base $LM$. Nevertheless, we conclude by identifying a class of bundles for which the $S^1$-equivariant first Chern class does descend to $LM$.

math.DG↗
arXiv2015

Computing the Maslov index from singularities of a matrix Riccati equation

We study the Maslov index as a tool to analyze stability of steady state solutions to a reaction-diffusion equation in one spatial dimension. We show that the path of unstable subspaces associated to this equation is governed by a matrix Riccati equation whose solution $S$ develops singularities when changes in the Maslov index occur. Our main result proves that at these singularities the change in Maslov index equals the number of eigenvalues of $S$ that increase to $+\infty$ minus the number of eigenvalues that decrease to $-\infty$.

math.DS↗
arXiv2013

Detector and Event Visualization with SketchUp at the CMS Experiment

We have created 3D models of the CMS detector and particle collision events in SketchUp, a 3D modelling program. SketchUp provides a Ruby API which we use to interface with the CMS Detector Description to create 3D models of the CMS detector. With the Ruby API, we also have created an interface to the JSON-based event format used for the iSpy event display to create 3D models of CMS events. These models have many applications related to 3D representation of the CMS detector and events. Figures produced based on these models were used in conference presentations, journal publications, technical design reports for the detector upgrades, art projects, outreach programs, and other presentations.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2005

Large-Scale Anisotropy of EGRET Gamma Ray Sources

In the course of its operation, the EGRET experiment detected high-energy gamma ray sources at energies above 100 MeV over the whole sky. In this communication, we search for large-scale anisotropy patterns among the catalogued EGRET sources using an expansion in spherical harmonics, accounting for EGRET's highly non-uniform exposure. We find significant excess in the quadrupole and octopole moments. This is consistent with the hypothesis that, in addition to the galactic plane, a second mid-latitude (5^{\circ} < |b| < 30^{\circ}) population, perhaps associated with the Gould belt, contributes to the gamma ray flux above 100 MeV.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2004

High Energy Physics in the Atmosphere: Phenomenology of Cosmic Ray Air Showers

The properties of cosmic rays with energies above 10**6 GeV have to be deduced from the spacetime structure and particle content of the air showers which they initiate. In this review we summarize the phenomenology of these giant air showers. We describe the hadronic interaction models used to extrapolate results from collider data to ultra high energies, and discuss the prospects for insights into forward physics at the LHC. We also describe the main electromagnetic processes that govern the longitudinal shower evolution, as well as the lateral spread of particles. Armed with these two principal shower ingredients and motivation from the underlying physics, we provide an overview of some of the different methods proposed to distinguish primary species. The properties of neutrino interactions and the potential of forthcoming experiments to isolate deeply penetrating showers from baryonic cascades are also discussed. We finally venture into a terra incognita endowed with TeV-scale gravity and explore anomalous neutrino-induced showers.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2003

Full-Sky Search for Ultra High Energy Cosmic Ray Anisotropies

Using data from the SUGAR and the AGASA experiments taken during a 10 yr period with nearly uniform exposure to the entire sky, we search for large-scale anisotropy patterns in the arrival directions of cosmic rays with energies > 10^{19.6} eV. We determine the angular power spectrum from an expansion in spherical harmonics for modes out to \ell=5. Based on available statistics, we find no significant deviation from isotropy. We compare the rather modest results which can be extracted from existing data samples with the results that should be forthcoming as new full-sky observatories begin operation.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2001

Extensive air showers with TeV-scale quantum gravity

One of the possible consequences of the existence of extra degrees of freedom beyond the electroweak scale is the increase of neutrino-nucleon cross sections ($σ_{νN}$) beyond Standard Model predictions. At ultra-high energies this may allow the existence of neutrino-initiated extensive air showers. In this paper, we examine the most relevant observables of such showers. Our analysis indicates that the future Pierre Auger Observatory could be potentially powerful in probing models with large compact dimensions.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2000

Scalable Parallel Implementation of Geant4 Using Commodity Hardware and Task Oriented Parallel C

We describe a scalable parallelization of Geant4 using commodity hardware in a collaborative effort between the College of Computer Science and the Department of Physics at Northeastern University. The system consists of a Beowulf cluster of 32 Pentium II processors with 128 MBytes of memory each, connected via ATM and fast Ethernet. The bulk of the parallelization is done using TOP-C (Task Oriented Parallel C), software widely used in the computational algebra community. TOP-C provides a flexible and powerful framework for parallel algorithm development, is easy to learn, and is available at no cost. Its task oriented nature allows one to parallelize legacy code while hiding the details of interprocess communications. Applications include fast interactive simulation of computationally intensive processes such as electromagnetic showers. General results motivate wider applications of TOP-C to other simulation problems as well as to pattern recognition in high energy physics.

hep-ph↗