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The field of computational physics has exploited HPCC technologies leading to new science, including new computational models in astronomy and astrophysics, charged plasma, and elementary particle physics. |
Astrophysical models of "black holes," galaxy formation, and solar dynamics help astronomers and astrophysicists better understand the forces and mechanisms in our Universe. One of the open questions in present day astronomy is the existence and behavior of "black holes" - astronomical objects so dense that not even light can escape - which are only inferred by indirect observations at this time. Because the equations governing the dynamics of black holes are relativistic, an understanding of a collision of two black holes requires simulations that were too difficult for the computing technology before recent advances made in the HPCC Program. A group of astrophysicists have formed the Binary Black Hole Alliance, and have used HPCC technology to enable new ways for computational scientists and astrophysicists (distributed over five universities) to collaborate in modeling the collision of two black holes. The Alliance's calculations led to the discovery of unsuspected qualitative features of the collision and to simple analytic models that reveal the underlying physics.
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Before-and-after frames from a 100-million-object simulation of a disk galaxy interacting with a smaller galaxy. The smaller galaxy passes through the disk of the larger galaxy, causing ring structures to form. The simulation is consistent with the Cold Dark Matter model of the universe and compatible with astronomical observations. |
Advances in computational sciences are being used to better understand and simulate large scale galaxy formation and accretion astrophysics. Using information on the universe's power spectrum from the Cosmic Background Explorer and three cosmological models, scientists have simulated galaxy interactions using up to 46 million objects to illustrate their understanding that the Galactic Harassment model for the universe drives galactic morphological evolution. These simulations have been verified with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope.
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The simulation complements Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging of the formation of the central regions of galaxies (a thousand light years) at redshifts of z ~ 2. Following their evolution in clusters to the present epoch, this model ties together a vast range of data to create a unified model of structure formation and galaxy evolution. |
In other computational science efforts, a suite of three Computational Fluid Dynamics algorithms for massively parallel processor architectures is providing greater understanding of the mechanisms that control the behavior of the solar heliosphere. This research has already led to the discovery of the phenomenon of two orthogonal magnetic flux tubes passing through one another and then reconnecting.
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A three-dimensional non-linear gyrokinetic plasma simulation showing turbulent fluctuations extending along the twisting magnetic field lines in a toroidal direction. |
QCD is the fundamental theory that describes the interactions between quarks and gluons, the underlying constituents of protons, neutrons, and other so-called elementary particles. Lattice QCD is a discrete computational technique for determining the consequences of QCD theory from first principles. In the HPCC Grand Challenge program, Lattice QCD simulations are being used by two U.S. collaborations to calculate the spectrum decay rates of hadrons by probing their quark and gluon wave functions. Lattice QCD simulations are used to determine the parameter that determines the decay of particles called B-mesons. B-mesons are the subject of intense study at experimental particle physics laboratories throughout the world and are the main focus of the B-Factory under construction in California.
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As a function moves along an interpolating path, the spacetime of the SS theory undergoes a drastic topological jump. |
Recent advances in the SS theory have shown how troubling singularities disappear when certain black holes, already known to occur as composite objects, are incorporated as fundamental particles. This result has the striking implication that SS theory ground states, which had been thought to be disjointed, are seen to fit together into a connected web with SS physics smoothly interpolating from one component to another. As one moves along an interpolating path, the spacetime of the SS theory undergoes a drastic topological change. The striking property is that the SS theory is perfectly smooth even at the places at which topological characteristic numbers jump.
Before-and-after frames from a 100-million-object simulation of a disk galaxy interacting with a smaller galaxy. The smaller galaxy passes through the disk of the larger galaxy, causing ring structures to form. The simulation is consistent with the Cold Dark Matter model of the universe and compatible with astronomical observations.
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