Auger ACCESS - Remote monitoring and controlling the auger experiment

Abstract

Ultra high energy cosmic rays are the most energetic of subatomic particles in the universe. They are measured to have energies of up to 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">20</sup> eV and occur at a rate of about once per square kilometer and century. To increase the probability of detecting one of these events, a huge detector covering a large area is needed. During the last decades, the Pierre Auger collaboration [1] build up an observatory covering 3000 square kilometers of the Pampa Amarilla close to Malargüe for this purpose. Until now, the Auger experiment was controlled exclusively via the local network for security and performance reasons. As local operation is associated with high travel costs, the Auger ACCESS project was started in 2005 to find a secure, operable and sustainable solution for remote control and monitoring. This paper descibes the implemented solution, including Grid technologies for secured access and infrastructure virtualization for building up a fully featured testing environment for the Pierre Auger Observatory. Finally, measurement results are presented together with a specification of a remote control room and associated benefits for the future of the Auger experiment.