Data management and access for neutron scattering experiments in J-PARC/MLF

Moriyama, Kentaro; Nakatani, Takeshi 

J-PARC/MLF is the experimental facility for neutron scattering experiments, providing the world highest intensity pulsed neutron. Many neutron instruments equipped with large-area detector and various sample environmental devices are currently in operation. A high intensity beam allows a lot of measurements in short time under a variety of conditions. These measurements produce data of petabyte order per year. In order to reliably manage the enormous data and provide effective data access for scientists, we are developing an integrated data management system, named MLF Experimental Database, based on a commercial XML database system suitable for semi-structured and flexible data such as experimental metadata. It is capable of real-time cataloging of raw data along with experimental metadata and other contextual information, and central management of raw data. The web portal provides data search/browse/download and simple functions for data analysis.