REST API and Web Interface for the Event Metadata System of the BM@N Experiment
Alexander I. Chebotov, A. Degtyarev, Konstantin V. Gertsenberger, Peter Klimai · Physics of Particles and Nuclei Letters · 2023
Abstract The Event Metadata System (EMS) developed for BM@N, a fixed target experiment of the NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility) project has been designed to store and index event records for particle collisions obtained at the BM@N facility and subsequently reconstructed. The system enables to quickly search for a required set of physics events based on various given criteria for further physics analyses. The main implemented interfaces to the EMS include Web UI (user interface) and REST API (application programming interface), that are presented in the paper in detail. The both interfaces have its own main use patterns, namely, the Web UI is mostly employed for browsing the Event Catalogue and checking its overall state, while the REST API helps to integrate the EMS with other software systems of the experiment, such as the main BM@N framework, BmnRoot to conveniently select events for a particular physics analysis. The interfaces have been developed using Kotlin multiplatform technology, hence, both front-end and back-end components of the Web service are parts of one project using the same programming language and a common codebase.