VAMDC

Publié le 4 December 2018 par Nicolas Moreau.

Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Centre Consortium

The "Virtual Atomic and Molecular Data Centre Consortium" (VAMDC Consortium) is a worldwide consortium which federates Atomic and Molecular databases through an e-science infrastructure and an organisation to support this activity (http://www.vamdc.org/structure/how-to-join-us/).

About 90% of the inter-connected databases handle data that are used for the interpretation of astronomical spectra and for the modeling in media of many fields of astrophysics. The VAMDC Consortium has connected databases from other fields such as the radiation damage and the plasma communities.

The infrastructure is composed of several key components :

  • The Portal is a central access point to look for data. It provides a graphical user interface where users can build queries that are distributed to all the relevant databases at the same time.
  • The species database is a repository of all the atomic and molecular species available in VAMDC. It is populated by gathering daily the chemical species available from each database composing the infrastructure. The species database provides a fast and convenient way to discover where data are located.
  • Each database in the infrastructure is queryable through a web service. They are registered in the VAMDC registry

    As a major actor in the field of atomic and molecular physics, the LERMA laboratory is a central element in both the governance and the technical maintenance and evolution of the infrastructure. A team of a senior astronomer and 3 software engineers is involved on different aspects :

  • Marie-Lise Dubernet Tuckey (Astronomer) : current chair of the board of director, scientific coordination.
  • Yaye Awa Ba (computer engineer) : development of the Spectcol software and the Basecol VAMDC node, web manager of the VAMDC website
  • Nicolas Moreau (computer engineer) : development of the VAMDC portal and species database, evolution of standards (convergence with IVOA standards), interface with node managers, co-chair of the technical board
  • Carlo-Maria Zwolf (computer engineer ) : executive director of VAMDC, development of the VAMDC querystore, co-chair of Group of European Data Experts in the Research Data Alliance (RDA) and co-chair of the Federation Identity Management Interest Group in the RDA