Physics

The physical world is governed by laws describing how matter and energy interact at scales ranging from the smallest particles to the entire universe. Physicists are using the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s enormous computing power to reveal the nature of matter at its most elusive—from the behavior of the quarks, electrons, and other fundamental particles that make up atoms and everything we know, to the workings of the molecules made up of those atoms.

Physics Projects

Mezzacappa copy

Three-dimensional Simulations for Core Collapse Supernovae

Principal Investigator: Anthony Mezzacappa, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Jaguar: 30,000,000 hours

Core-collapse supernovas are the death throes of massive stars. They are the single most important source of elements in the …

Howes_2

Turbulent Heating of Astrophysical Plasmas

Principal Investigator: Gregory Howes, University of Iowa
Jaguar: 18,000,000 hours

Kinetic plasma theory is notoriously complicated, involving a huge range of spatio-temporal scales. With current resources, it is not possible …

daughton_magnetic_lg

Unraveling the Physics of Magnetic Reconnection with 3D Kinetic Simulations

Principal Investigator: William Daughton, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Jaguar: 37,000,000 hours

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma physics process that converts magnetic energy into particle energy and plays a critical role …

Woosley

Petascale Simulations of Type 1a Supernovae

Principal Investigator: Stan Woosley,, University of California, Santa Cruz
Jaguar: 46,000,000 hours

The purpose of this project is to study four key stages of Type Ia supernovas: the long-time convection that leads …

norman

How High Redshift Galaxies Reionized the Universe

Principal Investigator: Michael Norman, University of California-San Diego
Jaguar: 32,000,000 hours

The objective of this project is to critically test whether the population of high redshift galaxies discovered by the Hubble …

Evans

The Solution of Three-Dimensional PWR Neutronics Benchmark Problems for CASL

Principal Investigator: Thomas Evans, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Jaguar: 19,000,000 hours

The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) is developing a virtual reactor simulation toolkit designed to use …

Vary

Nuclear Structure and Nuclear Reactions

Principal Investigator: James Vary, Iowa State University
Jaguar: 37,000,000 hours

Developing a comprehensive description of all nuclei (stable and unstable) and their reactions requires investigations of rare and exotic isotopes …

mori

Petascale Particle-In-Cell Simulations of Plasma Based Accelerators

Principal Investigator: Warren Mori, University of California, Los Angeles
Jaguar: 19,000,000 hours

The long-term future of experimental high-energy physics research using accelerators depends on the successful development of novel ultra-high-gradient acceleration methods. …

Mackenzie

Lattice QCD

Principal Investigator: Paul Mackenzie, Fermilab
Jaguar: 46,000,000 hours

Using leadership-class computing to advance lattice quantum chromodynamics and other strongly coupled field theories, the team’s research addresses fundamental questions …

Wang

Electromagnetic Effects on Gyrokinetic Simulations of Plasma Microturbulence

Principal Investigator: Eric Wang, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Jaguar: 14,000,000 hours

The project uses two advanced plasma microturbulence codes, GYRO and GS2, for nonlinear, electromagnetic simulations of tokamak plasma microturbulence. The …

Bhattacharjee_screencap

Magnetic Reconnection in High-Energy-Density Laser-Produced Plasmas

Principal Investigator: Amitava Bhattacharjee, University of New Hampshire
Jaguar: 14,000,000 hours

Magnetic reconnection—the process by which the magnetic topology in plasmas is rearranged—is ubiquitous in fusion, space and astrophysical plasmas. It …

Tsung

Petascale PIC Simulations of Laser-Plasma Interactions in IFE Plasmas

Principal Investigator: Frank Tsung, University of California, Los Angeles
Jaguar: 14,000,000 hours

UCLA’s plasma simulation group has a long history of expertise in particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, leadership-class computing, data reduction and visualization, …

WeixingWang

Investigation of Multi-Scale Transport Physics of Fusion Experiments Using Global Gyrokinetic Turbulence Simulations

Principal Investigator: Weixing Wang, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Jaguar: 19,000,000 hours

The development of magnetic fusion as a secure and reliable energy source that is environmentally and economically sustainable is a …