NEXT Software and Analysis Glossary

A

ana

Name of the FMWK executable that is invoked for any nextoffline reconstruction & analysis job

AnaBase^?

Attachment

Process by which an ionization electron, during drift, is captured by an electronegative impurity (either a neutral atom or molecule) in the gas, producing a negative ion. Attachment therefore reduces the amount of detectable ionization charge (that of the ionization electrons).

B

Barycenter Method

Branch

A section of the FMWK event, corresponding to a specific phase of data processing and allowing for partial I/O. The existing branches are: Header, DAQ, Raw, RawAux, Cal, Reco, Summary, User, MC, DetSim

C

Cathode Sum

CLHEP

Coordinate System

The z-axis (x=y=0) is the chamber cylindrical axis. The z=0 origin is located in the middle of the EL grid, with positive z-values going toward the cathode. The y-axis is the vertical axis, with positive y-values going up. The x-axis is fixed by requiring a right-handed coordinate system: if sitting in the EL grid and facing the cathode, positive x-values going left.

D

DAQDigit

recobase::DAQDigit is a RecoBase class. It represents a digitized waveform for a channel, as written by the DAQ. It is indexed by an electronics ID channel (no geometry information, at this stage). It contains a vector of charge values (in ADC units) corresponding to consecutive sample times.

Dark Current

Digit

recobase::Digit is a RecoBase class. It stores the information about one calibrated hit, that is after pedestal subtraction and hot calibration, either from the DAQ or from the MC. It is indexed by an electronics ID channel (no geometry information, at this stage). It contains a vector of pairs, one element storing charge values (in PE units) and the other storing time values (in us units).

Digitization

Drift

Motion of ionization electrons under the influence of the drift electric field, displacing the ionization charges from their production point to the EL grid and avoiding their recombination.

Drift Correction

Drift Velocity

Average velocity along the drift field direction for the ionization electrons in the gas. Of order 1 mm/us, depending on drift field, gas impurities, gas pressure.

E

EL Parametrized Simulation

EL Table

Electron LIfetime

Energy Plane

F

Filter

FMWK

FMWK is a simple framework for data analysis and reconstruction for use by a generic experiment, see: https://cdcvs.fnal.gov/redmine/projects/nusoft/wiki/FMWK. The NEXT-specific code based on FMWK is nextoffline.

FMWK Event

FMWK Event File

Folder

G

Gain

May have different meanings for us:

• EL gain: ratio of EL photons produced per ionization electron reaching the EL grid. Units: photons/electron
• PMT gain: Electrons reaching the last dynode of the PMT per single PE liberated at the photocathode. Units: electrons/PE
• Electronics channel gain: ADC counts per single PE liberated at the photocathode. Units: ADC/PE. Proportional to the PMT gain, but including other effects as well.

Geant4

Geant4 is a generic toolkit for the simulation of the passage of particles through matter, see: http://geant4.cern.ch/. The NEXT-specific code based on Geant4 is nexus.

Genbb

H

Histogram File

I

Ionization Cluster

Ionization Electron

IRENE

IRENE stands for InteRfacE^? for a NEXT Event. The library provides a generic Event Data Model along with some useful tools for analysis, see here. Used by both nexus (to store detector simulation results) and nextoffline.

J

Job Configuration File

A file in charge of the top-level configuration of a FMWK job, issued via the ana executable. Detailed configuration, at the single module level, may be delegated to several module configuration files, in a modular approach. It the file contains the link and job XML tags, then it is a job (and not a module) configuration file.

L

Library

For the general definition, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_(computing). In nextoffline, the (shared) libraries are the ones placed in $SRT_PUBLIC_CONTEXT/lib/$SRT_SUBDIR and $SRT_PRIVATE_CONTEXT/lib/$SRT_SUBDIR. The library filenames all start with the prefix lib, they are typically followed by the SRT package name, and have .so or .dylib as suffix (depending on your computing architecture)

Light Yield

LightHit^?

M

Module

At the source code level, a jobc::Module is a FMWK class defining the basic code unit for reconstruction or analysis, see https://cdcvs.fnal.gov/redmine/projects/nusoft/wiki/JobControl. Any nextoffline class inheriting from the jobc::Module class is called a module. At the job configuration level, modules are the simplest (and most typical) nodes run within a job. They typically perform a single, well-defined, reconstruction or analysis task

Module Configuration File

A file in charge of the configuration of a specific Module. All module configuration files contain the XML tag (together with other tags). They never contain the link and job XML tags, used only in job configuration files.

MySQL^?

MySQL^? is the relational database management system used by [[SoftwareGlossary#nextoffline][nextoffline], see: http://www.mysql.com/

N

NaI^?

NEXT-100

NEXT-DBDM

NEXT-DEMO

nextoffline

The NEXT software framework for reconstruction and analysis. It is based on FMWK.

nexus

Stands for NEXT Utility for Simulation. The NEXT software framework for detector simulation. It is based on Geant4.

Node

Element run within a nextoffline job, either a single Module or a Sequence of them

Ntuple

P

Peak

recobase::Peak is a RecoBase class. It stores information about waveform peaks in time space. It inherits from Digit, and therefore contains the full vector of (time,charge) pairs belonging to the peak. In addition, some other peak properties are set.

Pedestal

The level, in ADC counts, an electronics channel is giving for no charge. Because of fluctuations in time, noise and digitization effects, a pedestal level cannot be known exactly, and both a mean and a RMS value are typically associated to it.

Pitch

R

Radial Correction

RawBase^?

RecoBase^?

The SRT Package (and Library) of nextoffline grouping all reconstruction-level objects. All classes within it live in the recobase namespace.

Recombination

Process where an ionization electron recombines with a positive ion in the gas, reducing the amount of detectable ionization charge.

Reflectivity

Release

S

S1-like Peak

An object of class type Peak representing a waveform peak. Its most important feature is that it is narrow in time (typically 1 us or less, depending on electronics shaping)

S2-like Peak

An object of class type Peak representing a waveform peak that could be due to a ionization signal. Its most important feature is that it is wide in time (typically a few us or more, depending on event topology, drift velocity and EL grid spacing)

S2Map

S2Track

Sampling Factor

SCons

Sensor

A NEXT photo-detector, either a PMT or a SiPM^? (MPPC). Also a RecoBase class where to store information about a single sensor.

Sequence

A sequence is a collection of related Modules run within a FMWK job, see https://cdcvs.fnal.gov/redmine/projects/nusoft/wiki/JobControl

Shaping

Single PE

Slicing

SoftRelTools^? (SRT)

Stands for Software Release Tools, a UNIX-based software management system used by nextoffline, see: http://www.fnal.gov/docs/products/srt/. The system handles the version control, management, building, and distribution of the nextoffline code.

SRT package

The basic unit in which nextoffline code is organized into. Typically, the code in one SRT package is used to produce one library in the building stage. The source code of one package is organized in one directory (which may have subdirectories). It is managed via SVN, via package-specific SVN tags. A list of all nextoffline SRT packages can be found here: http://next.ific.uv.es/viewvc/offline/FMWK/pkgs/?root=next

Step Size

Subversion (SVN)

Version control system used by all NEXT software. That is, Subversion manages files and directories, and the changes made to them, over time. This allows you to recover older versions of your software or examine the history of how your software changed. See: http://subversion.tigris.org/

T

T0

jobc::T0 is a RecoBase class. It defines the event t0 and stores a collection of pointers to (S1-like) Peak objects that are T0 Candidates

T0 Candidate

A S1-like Peak that fulfills some additional requirements. Possibly due to a primary scintillation light signal.

Tracking Plane

Transparency

Trigger

U

Utilities

W

Waveform

Sometimes used as synonym of Peak

X

X Ray

XML

Extensible Markup Language, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML. Format used for the XML files used by nextoffline

XML File

A nextoffline confifguration file, written in XML^? format. Two varieties typically exist:Module Configuration Files or Job Configuration Files.

Z

Zero Suppression

-- MichelSorel - 20 Jan 2012