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New Geometric Model Improves Predictions of Fluid Flow in Rock

Deep beneath the Earth’s surface, oil and groundwater percolate through gaps in rock and other geologic material. Hidden from sight, these critical resources pose a significant challenge for scientists seeking to evaluate the state of such two-phase fluid flows. Fortunately, the combination of supercomputing and synchrotron-based imaging techniques enables more…
Katie Elyce Jones
February 6, 2019
Technology

Summit Speeds Calculations in the Search for Exotic Particles

In pursuit of numerical predictions for exotic particles, researchers are simulating atom-building quark and gluon particles over 70 times faster on Summit, the world’s most powerful scientific supercomputer, than on its predecessor Titan at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The interactions of quarks and…
Katie Elyce Jones
September 17, 2018
particle physics, nuclear physics, supercomputingScience

With Supercomputing Power and an Unconventional Strategy, Scientists Solve a Next-Generation Physics Problem

Using the Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a team of researchers has calculated a fundamental property of protons and neutrons, known as the nucleon axial coupling, with groundbreaking precision. Led by André Walker-Loud of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the…
Katie Elyce Jones
May 30, 2018
Science

Decades-Long Physics Mystery Elucidated with Titan

The same fusion reactions that power the sun also occur inside a tokamak, a device that uses magnetic fields to confine and control plasmas of 100-plus million degrees. Under extreme temperatures and pressure, hydrogen atoms can fuse together, creating new helium atoms and simultaneously releasing energy. Fusion could be a…
Rachel McDowell
October 17, 2017
People

OLCF Brings Petascale Computing to 2017 APS March Meeting

National Center for Computational Sciences Director of Science Jack Wells co-organized a focus session called “Computational Physics at the Petascale and Beyond” at the APS March Meeting 2017 to bring high-performance computing topics to the largest gathering of physicists in the world. For staff at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing…
Rachel McDowell
May 9, 2017
Science

Titan Takes on the Big One

A team led by Thomas Jordan of the Southern California Earthquake Center, headquartered at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, is using the Titan supercomputer to develop physics-based earthquake simulations to better understand earthquake systems, including the potential seismic hazards from known faults and the impact of strong…
Miki Nolin
November 10, 2015
Science

Titan Helps Unpuzzle Decades-Old Plutonium Perplexities

A team of condensed matter theorists at Rutgers University used nearly 10 million Titan core hours to calculate the electronic and magnetic structure of plutonium using a combination of density functional theory calculations and the leading-edge dynamical mean field theory technique.
Jeremy Rumsey
September 29, 2015
People

Supernova Summer School Along the Road to Exascale

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL’s) Bronson Messer shared his knowledge on this subject during the 2014 International Summer School on AstroComputing (ISSAC), held at the University of California’s High-Performance AstroComputing Center (UC-HiPACC) in San Diego, from July 21 to August 1.
OLCF Staff Writer
October 14, 2014
Technology

Titan Delivered in 2013

By adding a graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerator to the 16-core central processing unit (CPU) on each node, the OLCF substantially increased Titan’s computing capability, enabling INCITE researchers to reach unprecedented science achievements.
OLCF Staff Writer
March 18, 2014