RHIC data correlation methodology

A requirement for RHIC data plotting software and physics analysis is the correlation of data from all accelerator data gathering systems. Data correlation provides the capability for a user to request a plot of multiple data channels vs. time, and to make meaningful time-correlated data comparisons. The task of data correlation for RHIC requires careful consideration because data acquisition triggers are generated from various asynchronous sources including events from the RHIC Event Link, events from the two Beam Sync Links, and other unrelated clocks. In order to correlate data from asynchronous acquisition systems a common time reference is required. The RHIC data correlation methodology will allow all RHIC data to be converted to a common wall clock time, while still preserving native acquisition trigger information. A data correlation task force team, composed of the authors of this paper, has been formed to develop data correlation design details and provide guidelines for software developers. The overall data correlation methodology is presented