Sensitivity Studies for the KATRIN experiment

The KATRIN experiment aims to determine the mass of the electron anti-neutrino with a sensitivity of 200 meV by investigating the endpoint of the tritium beta decay spectrum. This thesis uses a newly developed detailed model of the KATRIN tritium source in combination with results from test experiments to verify that this sensitivity can be reached. Additionally, an envisioned second phase with an enhanced sensitivity is investigated as well

Using PRIMA-DBMS as a testbed for parallel complex-object processing

The PRIMA-DBMS approach is explained by introducing PRIMA's architecture and query processing framework. The PRIMA-DBMS constitutes a testbed that is flexible enough to support evaluation and validation of quite a variation of different strategies for complex-object processing taking into account different parallelization levels and different hardware environments. Thus, PRIMA marks an important step towards our main research goal concerning measures for efficient complex-object processing: the measures that are in competition with each other are query optimization, query evaluation strategies, and massive storage, that all benefit from parallelism. The programming environment that supports the parallel DBMS processing is introduced with special emphasis on its ability for parametrization and configuration. A case study of the PRIMA testbed illustrates our first investigations and demonstrates a methodology for evaluation and tuning of PRIMA configurations

PRIMA - a database system supporting dynamically defined composite objects

PRIMA is a non-standard database system developed at the University Kaiserslautern. Its major purpose is the support of engineering design applications, such as VLSI design and software engineering. The applications require tailored application-dependent interfaces which, however, all share basic notions like that of a composite object. Hence, the approach of PRIMA is to offer an application-independent complex-object interface (the moleculeatom data model, shortly called MAD model) and to provide means to easily augment this interface by application-dependent functionality. In the following, we will concentrate on the MAD model and its implementation

Kassiopeia: A Modern, Extensible C++ Particle Tracking Package

The Kassiopeia particle tracking framework is an object-oriented software package using modern C++ techniques, written originally to meet the needs of the KATRIN collaboration. Kassiopeia features a new algorithmic paradigm for particle tracking simulations which targets experiments containing complex geometries and electromagnetic fields, with high priority put on calculation efficiency, customizability, extensibility, and ease of use for novice programmers. To solve Kassiopeia's target physics problem the software is capable of simulating particle trajectories governed by arbitrarily complex differential equations of motion, continuous physics processes that may in part be modeled as terms perturbing that equation of motion, stochastic processes that occur in flight such as bulk scattering and decay, and stochastic surface processes occuring at interfaces, including transmission and reflection effects. This entire set of computations takes place against the backdrop of a rich geometry package which serves a variety of roles, including initialization of electromagnetic field simulations and the support of state-dependent algorithm-swapping and behavioral changes as a particle's state evolves. Thanks to the very general approach taken by Kassiopeia it can be used by other experiments facing similar challenges when calculating particle trajectories in electromagnetic fields. It is publicly available at https://github.com/KATRIN-Experiment/Kassiopei

On structuring primitives and communication primitives for design environments

The evolution of CAD systems can be described in several stages which reflect an increasing effort for system Integration. It starts from a file-and-translator approach evolving to a data-integrated tool environment, and finally reaching the stage of a data-integrated design environment for CAD (sometimes also called CAD Framework). In the following we will detail some aspects of these stages