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neutron star simulation ORNL

Journey to the Center of a Neutron Star

For astrophysicists, neutron stars stand out as objects of irresistible fascination — perhaps, in part, because of how difficult they are to decipher. But calculations conducted on the Frontier supercomputer, located at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have revealed new clues about the inner workings of neutron…
Coury TurczynCoury TurczynJune 2, 20259 min
Illustration of the GRETA detector, a spherical array of metal cylinders. The detector is divided into two halves to show the inside of the machine. Both halves are attached to metal harnesses, displayed against a black and green cyber-themed background.

Novel Data Streaming Software Chases Light Speed from Accelerator to Supercomputer

Analyzing massive datasets from nuclear physics experiments can take hours or days to process, but researchers are working to radically reduce that time to mere seconds using special software being developed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge national laboratories. DELERIA — short for Distributed Event-Level Experiment…
Jeremy RumseyJeremy RumseyMay 19, 20258 min

DEEP DIVE: Exascale Computing Illuminates Detailed Structure of Atomic Nuclei

by Chris Driver Using a novel computational modeling technique to test theoretical quantum physics, a team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered properties of the atomic nucleus at new levels of detail — illuminating behavior of its protons and neutrons amid fundamental forces…
Katie BetheaKatie BetheaFebruary 26, 20257 min

Summit’s Bonus Year of Scientific Achievement

Leadership-class supercomputers dedicated to open science are not built to last forever. In fact, they have a limited lifespan by design. No matter how powerful they may be on launch day, advancements in computing technology and changing computing needs will push them closer to obsolescence with each passing year until…
Coury TurczynCoury TurczynDecember 3, 202415 min
side by side images of galaxy clusters.

Record-Breaking Run on Frontier Sets New Bar for Simulating the Universe in the Exascale Era

The universe just got a whole lot bigger — or at least in the world of computer simulations, that is. In early November, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory used the fastest supercomputer on the planet to run the largest astrophysical simulation of the universe ever conducted.…
Jeremy RumseyJeremy RumseyNovember 19, 20246 min
neck rupture in nuclear fission

Surprising Details in a More Precise Description of Fission

Nuclear fission — when the nucleus of an atom splits in two, releasing energy — may seem like a process that is fully understood. First discovered in 1939 and thoroughly studied ever since, fission is a constant factor in modern life, used in everything from nuclear medicine to power-generating nuclear…
Coury TurczynCoury TurczynOctober 23, 20248 min
The Frontier supercomputer simulated magnetic responses inside calcium-48, depicted by red and blue spheres. Insights into the nucleus’s fundamental forces could shed light on supernova dynamics.

Frontier Simulations Provide New Insights Into Calcium-48’s Controversial Nuclear Magnetic Excitation

The nucleus of an atom is almost inconceivably small, and most people have little idea just how much of the world around them is shaped by the strong nuclear forces that hold those tiny subatomic particles together. Nuclear physicists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently used…
Jeremy RumseyJeremy RumseySeptember 3, 20248 min

Frontier Simulations Could Help Build a Better Diamond

The world’s fastest supercomputer helped researchers simulate synthesizing a material harder and tougher than diamond — or any other substance on Earth. The study used Frontier, the HPE Cray EX supercomputing system at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to predict the likeliest strategy to synthesize such a…
Matt LakinMatt LakinJuly 26, 20247 min
neutrinos

Untangling the Entangled

Researchers used quantum simulations to obtain new insights into the nature of neutrinos — the mysterious subatomic particles that abound throughout the universe — and their role in the deaths of massive stars. The study relied on support from the Quantum Computing User Program, or QCUP, and the Quantum Science Center, a national Quantum Information…
Matt LakinMatt LakinJune 21, 20247 min
X-ray bursts

Scientists Use Summit Supercomputer to Explore Exotic Stellar Phenomena

Understanding how a thermonuclear flame spreads across the surface of a neutron star — and what that spreading can tell us about the relationship between the neutron star’s mass and its radius — can also reveal a lot about the star’s composition. Neutron stars — the compact remnants of supernova…
Quinn BurkhartQuinn BurkhartMarch 15, 20246 min
Exascale new frontier OLCF Banner

Exascale’s New Frontier: LatticeQCD

PI: Andreas Kronfeld, Distinguished Scientist, Fermilab In 2016, the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) set out to develop advanced software for the arrival of exascale-class supercomputers capable of a quintillion (1018) or more calculations per second. That leap meant rethinking, reinventing, and optimizing dozens of scientific applications and…
Coury TurczynCoury TurczynFebruary 22, 20245 min
oxygen-28

Oxygen-28 Unbound

Isotopes — atoms of a particular element that have different numbers of neutrons — can be used for a variety of tasks, from tracking climate change to conducting medical research. Investigating rare isotopes, which have extreme neutron-to-proton imbalances and are often created in accelerator facilities, provides scientists with opportunities to…
Coury TurczynCoury TurczynAugust 30, 20238 min
Exascale new frontier OLCF Banner

Exascale’s New Frontier: WarpX

PI: Jean-Luc Vay, Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory In 2016, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Exascale Computing Project (ECP) set out to develop advanced software for the arrival of exascale-class supercomputers capable of a quintillion (10¹⁸) or more calculations per second. That meant…
Coury TurczynCoury TurczynJuly 18, 20236 min
dark matter

Peering into the Universe’s Dark Matter

A research team from the University of California, Santa Cruz, have used the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Summit supercomputer to run one of the most complete cosmological models yet to probe the properties of dark matter — the hypothetical cosmic web of the universe that largely remains a mystery…
Coury TurczynCoury TurczynJuly 5, 202310 min

Exascale Blastoff

With the world’s first exascale supercomputer now fully open for scientific business, researchers can thank the early users who helped get the machine up to speed. Frontier set a new record for computational power when the HPE Cray EX supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory debuted…
Matt LakinMatt LakinJune 28, 20236 min