Preserving the RHIC Legacy: Curation of Data and Knowledge through an AI-Enhanced Preservation Plan

As the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory concludes its 25-year program, a Data and Analysis Preservation Plan (DAPP) is being developed to ensure long-term reuse of its scientific legacy. RHIC’s nearly one exabyte of data and 600+ publications represent an irreplaceable resource in nuclear physics.

The DAPP addresses not only data preservation but also the capture of analysis workflows, software environments, and expert knowledge. Decades of RHIC research have produced a wide range of tools and documentation, much of it fragmented or undocumented. Future users will need structured, searchable access to this information.

To meet this challenge, the plan combines scalable infrastructure with AI-enhanced tools that transform code, documents, and logs into a usable knowledge base. Features include natural language search, reproducible environments, and curated metadata. All components will be open source, providing a model for future efforts such as the Electron-Ion Collider.