A couple of months ago I blogged about how at ATLAS we’re using cosmic rays to study the detector. Well with data impending, the work that my group and I have been doing was submitted to become internal ATLAS document last week. This process was new to me… so I thought I’d share. Not every plot we make is available for public viewing. Our “notes” (ATLAS documents) come in two flavors: one that is available for public view, and one that isn’t. The ones that aren’t for public view don’t really have any special information – for ATLAS eyes only – they just don’t require that all the plots included are approved by the group they’re associated with. For example, the study I did was on the uniformity of the Liquid Argon (LAr) Calorimeter, so the LAr group has to approve the plots (in other words, make sure they aren’t confusing, that things are labeled properly, that it’s relevant… etc). The process of writing this note took about 5 months. There were at least 5 direct authors and about 10 total people reading and giving input (relatively small group for ATLAS standards 🙂 ). However, with every plot, and with every paragraph we had to make sure we understood exactly what we were implying. From new questions came more cross-checking and new understanding. There was one point where we were comparing numbers of events in a specific region of the detector because I wrote my code separately than the other members of the group (which is also standard.. being able to check independently).
We had several plots approved, but wanted to include a couple of additional plots for clarity – which means that it’s internal only. So finally after all this – months and months of back and forth, editing and re-editing, we submitted… as a “communications” note. This means that it hasn’t been reviewed yet. Before it can be an “internal” note, it has to be checked by an independent group. Then we make changes as suggested, and it can finally be approved. This whole process reminds me of that old school house rock song about how a bill becomes a law. See there’s me waiting for the note to be approved.

There we are waiting for our note to become official
So Tuesday was a day for celebration (ok, so we don’t need too much of an excuse to celebrate). But some of the plots we worked on are going to go into another publication, which will be public and I’ll definitely share when it’s available. That is a whole other process though for another time.
-Regina