I would like to ask each of you to serve on the Task Force to Reassess 
the STAR Offline Computing Requirements. Please find below the information 
(objective, charge, approach and members/topics) about the Task Force. This task 
force and its findings will be very important to our ultimate capability to 
analyze data and extract the physics from STAR. I ask you to take the time and 
seriously consider accepting this offer. Peter Jacobs has agreed to chair the 
task force, with Lanny Ray and Torre Wenaus as ex-officio members. A preliminary 
report is expected by October 1.

I would like to thank you for considering this request to play a 
significant role in defining STAR's Offline Computing requirements.  If you have 
any questions, please feel free to contact me or Peter Jacobs.

  Sincerely, 
  John

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| John W. Harris                        email: John.Harris@yale.edu |
| Physics Department                    phone: (203) 432 6106       |
| Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory   fax:   (203) 432 8926       |
| Yale University                                                   |
| 272 Whitney Avenue                                                |
| New Haven, CT 06520, USA                                          |
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TASK FORCE TO REASSESS STAR OFFLINE COMPUTING REQUIREMENTS
__________________________________________________________

Objective:

Review and update STAR offline computing requirements.

Provide this as input to STAR Spokesman and the RHIC Task Force, which is 
responding to the recommendation of the recent RHIC Offline Computing Review 
that offline requirements should be updated.


Charge:

     Develop the offline computing requirements (including compute cycles,
data storage on shelf tapes, robotic tape storage and disc, network
bandwidth between storage and local and remote processors, etc.)  for the
analysis and interpretation of STAR data from running years 1 (assumed to
begin in October 1999) and future running scenarios.  Consider the full STAR
physics agenda including nucleus-nucleus physics (pp, pA, and AA), spin
physics and peripheral collision (two-photon) physics.

     Develop a reasonable scenario for event reconstruction, data analysis
(including DST and micro-DST stages) and simulations needed to correct and
interpret the data and for comparisons of data with appropriate physics
models.  It is expected that the analysis of STAR offline computing
requirements will be based on the scenario that you develop.  Indicate
analysis topics or specialized analysis approaches that drive particular
computing requirements, so that the STAR Collaboration can consider their
impact on offline computing requirements and resources.  Analyses with
unusual cpu to I/O requirements should also be flagged.

     The precision of this analysis is clearly limited by very significant
uncertainties.  It seems not to be worthwhile to aim for a precision of
better than a factor of two.


Approach:  

A task force reporting to the STAR Spokesman and consisting of
STAR physicists with recent and relevant experience in specific physics
analysis approaches will be asked to do this reassessment of STAR offline
computing requirements.  The task force will be chaired by Peter Jacobs
(LBNL), with Lanny Ray (Texas) and Torre Wenaus (BNL) as ex officio members.
It will consist of the following STAR Collaborators who will concentrate on
the physics topics listed by their names.

Topic Task Force members

Soft hadronic physics P.  Jacobs (LBL) & S.  Margetis (BNL,Kent) 
Hyperon physics K.  Wilson (WSU) & P. Jones (Birmingham)
Leptons & D-mesons T.  Ullrich (Yale) 
High Pt, jets and photons T. LeCompte (ANL) & W.  Christie (BNL) 
Event-by-event physics T.  Trainor (UW) & I. Sakrejda (LBNL)
Spin physics G. Eppley (Rice) & H. Spinka (ANL)
Peripheral collision (two-photon) physics S.  Klein (LBL)
Particle correlations (HBT) S. Pandey (Wayne State) & P. Seyboth (MPI)


     Torre Wenaus, Head of STAR Computing and Software, will provide an
information channel between the STAR task force and the RHIC Offline
Computing management.  He will also advise the task force on issues related
to the impact of STAR requirements on the RHIC Computing Facility and other
STAR computing resources and on the overall STAR software.  This task force
will be provided with information concerning the current state of planning
for STAR data taking and physics analysis by the Chair of the STAR Runtime
Committee and the Convenors of the STAR Physics Working Groups,
respectively.  The task force is asked to submit a preliminary report to the
STAR Spokesman by October 1, and a final report to the Spokesman by Nov 1.