PATOF – From the PAst TO the Future: Legacy Data in Small and Medium-Scale "PUNCH" Experiments – a Blueprint for PUNCH and Other Disciplines

The PATOF project builds on work ongoing at MAMI particle physics experiment A4. It produced a stream of valuable data for many years which already released scientific output of high quality and still provides a solid basis for future publications. Here, we report from our approach to make the data hoard of a dismounted project sustainable and publishable according to the FAIR principles which, finally, would make the data intelligible to, both, humans and machines. In addition to a complex central detector system recording electrons after their scattering off nuclear targets, several auxiliary systems were used to record parameters like beam position or environmental and slow-control data. The A4 data set consists of about 100 TB and 300 million files of different types (hierarchical folder structure and file format with minimal metadata provided create vague context). Recent work with consulting support from the HMC hub “Matter” helped to identify problems and potential solutions for a FAIRification of A4 data. We would now like to go beyond the support we can get from the hub and build a full “FAIR Metadata Factory” that can be used across the research field and beyond. 

The focus of PATOF is on making the data of A4 (and in the future of ALPS II, PRIMA, P2, and LUXE) fully publicly available. The project proposes to apply expertise in FAIR data management gained in PUNCH experiments to other disciplines. The results - including the generalisation of the FAIR Metadata Factory - will be openly available, with the perspective of establishing a “living cookbook” useful for any data project. PATOF will serve as a catalyst by having good connections to other research fields, to related HMC applications.