colliderstable

ColliderStable is a hypothetical data model and software ecosystem intended for organizing collider event data in a tabular form. It aims to standardize how per-event and per-particle information collected by particle physics experiments is represented and exchanged.

Data model: The core concept is a table-based representation in which each row corresponds to a unit of observation, such as an event or a reconstructed track. Typical columns include run_id, event_id, detector_id, or run_number, event_number, and reconstruction_version; kinematic quantities such as px, py, pz, energy, momentum magnitude p, transverse momentum pt, pseudorapidity eta, azimuthal angle phi, and mass; particle identifiers and charges; and flags or quality indicators. Derived quantities like invariant mass, missing energy, and vertex position may be included. All quantities use standard units (GeV for energy, GeV/c for momentum, radians for angles). Metadata capture data provenance, detector conditions, calibration status, and software versions.

Interoperability and formats: The design emphasizes compatibility with common data formats (CSV, JSON, HDF5, Parquet) and analysis tools. Access methods include file-based APIs and database-like queries; interfaces with ROOT, Python (pandas, numpy), and SQL-like query engines facilitate analysis, filtering, and aggregation.

Applications and benefits: ColliderStable supports reproducible analyses, cross-experiment data exchange, and scalable analytics. Its tabular structure enables efficient slicing, grouping, and summarization of event-level and particle-level data, while robust provenance enhances traceability of results.

Status and community: ColliderStable is an emerging concept in collider data management, promoted by open-data initiatives and research collaborations seeking interoperable data representations. Not yet standardized across the field, it serves as a reference model for developing and comparing data formats.