Edinburgh DiRAC Resource Grant
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
DiRAC (Distributed Research utilising Advanced Computing) is the integrated supercomputing facility for theoretical modelling and HPC-based research in particle physics, nuclear physics, astronomy and cosmology, areas in which the UK is world-leading. It was funded as a result of investment of £12.32 million, from the Government's Large Facilities Capital Fund, together with investment from STFC and from universities. In 2012, the DiRAC facility was upgraded with a further £15 million capital investment from government (DiRAC-2).
The DiRAC facility provides a variety of computer architectures, matching machine architecture to the algorithm design and requirements of the research problems to be solved. The science facilitated includes: using supercomputers to enable scientists to calculate what theories of the early universe predict and to test them against observations of the present universe; undertaking lattice field theory calculations whose primary aim is to increase the predictive power of the Standard Model of elementary particle interactions through numerical simulation of Quantum Chromodynamics; carrying out state-of-the-art cosmological simulations, including the large-scale distribution of dark matter, the formation of dark matter haloes, the formation and evolution of galaxies and clusters, the physics of the intergalactic medium and the properties of the intracluster gas.
This grant is to support the continued operation of the DiRAC facilities until 2017 to ensure that the UK remains one of the world-leaders of theoretical modelling in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology.
The DiRAC facility provides a variety of computer architectures, matching machine architecture to the algorithm design and requirements of the research problems to be solved. The science facilitated includes: using supercomputers to enable scientists to calculate what theories of the early universe predict and to test them against observations of the present universe; undertaking lattice field theory calculations whose primary aim is to increase the predictive power of the Standard Model of elementary particle interactions through numerical simulation of Quantum Chromodynamics; carrying out state-of-the-art cosmological simulations, including the large-scale distribution of dark matter, the formation of dark matter haloes, the formation and evolution of galaxies and clusters, the physics of the intergalactic medium and the properties of the intracluster gas.
This grant is to support the continued operation of the DiRAC facilities until 2017 to ensure that the UK remains one of the world-leaders of theoretical modelling in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology.
Planned Impact
The high-performance computing applications supported by DiRAC typically involve new algorithms and implementations optimised for high energy efficiency which impose demands on computer architectures that the computing industry has found useful for hardware and system software design and testing.
DiRAC researchers have on-going collaborations with computing companies that maintain this strong connection between the scientific goals of the DiRAC Consortium and the development of new computing technologies that drive the commercial high-performance computing market, with economic benefits to the companies involved and more powerful computing capabilities available to other application areas including many that address socio-economic challenges.
DiRAC researchers have on-going collaborations with computing companies that maintain this strong connection between the scientific goals of the DiRAC Consortium and the development of new computing technologies that drive the commercial high-performance computing market, with economic benefits to the companies involved and more powerful computing capabilities available to other application areas including many that address socio-economic challenges.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Richard Kenway (Principal Investigator) | |
| Peter Boyle (Co-Investigator) |
Publications
Aurrekoetxea J
(2020)
The effects of potential shape on inhomogeneous inflation
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Hughes M
(2020)
The [a/Fe]-[Fe/H] relation in the E-MOSAICS simulations: its connection to the birth place of globular clusters and the fraction of globular cluster field stars in the bulge
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Yurchenko S
(2020)
ExoMol line lists - XXXVIII. High-temperature molecular line list of silicon dioxide (SiO2)
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Offler S
(2020)
News from bottomonium spectral functions in thermal QCD
Fumagalli M
(2020)
Detecting neutral hydrogen at z ? 3 in large spectroscopic surveys of quasars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Anisman L
(2020)
WASP-117 b: An Eccentric Hot Saturn as a Future Complex Chemistry Laboratory
in The Astronomical Journal
Monaco P
(2020)
The accuracy of weak lensing simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Soler J
(2020)
The history of dynamics and stellar feedback revealed by the H I filamentary structure in the disk of the Milky Way
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Collins GS
(2020)
A steeply-inclined trajectory for the Chicxulub impact.
in Nature communications
Bower R
(2020)
Numerical convergence of hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation: the abundance and internal structure of galaxies and their cold dark matter haloes
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Wurster J
(2020)
Non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics versus turbulence - I. Which is the dominant process in protostellar disc formation?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Yip K
(2020)
On the Compatibility of Ground-based and Space-based Data: WASP-96 b, an Example*
in The Astronomical Journal
Currie L
(2020)
Convection with misaligned gravity and rotation: simulations and rotating mixing length theory
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Johnson C
(2021)
Excited J - - meson resonances at the SU(3) flavor point from lattice QCD
in Physical Review D
DeGraf C
(2021)
Morphological evolution of supermassive black hole merger hosts and multimessenger signatures
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Clark VHJ
(2021)
Modelling the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium spectra of silylene (SiH2).
in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
Hatton D
(2021)
Bottomonium precision tests from full lattice QCD: Hyperfine splitting, ? leptonic width, and b quark contribution to e + e - ? hadrons
in Physical Review D
Dobbs C
(2021)
The properties of clusters, and the orientation of magnetic fields relative to filaments, in magnetohydrodynamic simulations of colliding clouds
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Karunakaran A
(2021)
Satellites around Milky Way Analogs: Tension in the Number and Fraction of Quiescent Satellites Seen in Observations versus Simulations
in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
DeGraf C
(2021)
Morphological evolution of supermassive black hole merger hosts and multimessenger signatures
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Owens A
(2021)
Theoretical rovibronic spectroscopy of the calcium monohydroxide radical (CaOH).
in The Journal of chemical physics
Drewes N
(2021)
On the Dynamics of Low-viscosity Warped Disks around Black Holes
in The Astrophysical Journal
Becker G
(2021)
The mean free path of ionizing photons at 5 < z < 6: evidence for rapid evolution near reionization
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Owens A
(2021)
ExoMol line lists - XLI. High-temperature molecular line lists for the alkali metal hydroxides KOH and NaOH
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Koudmani S
(2021)
A little FABLE: exploring AGN feedback in dwarf galaxies with cosmological simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Changeat Q
(2021)
An Exploration of Model Degeneracies with a Unified Phase Curve Retrieval Analysis: The Light and Dark Sides of WASP-43 b
in The Astrophysical Journal
Bartlett D
(2021)
Spatially offset black holes in the Horizon-AGN simulation and comparison to observations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Norman S
(2021)
Stars Crushed by Black Holes. I. On the Energy Distribution of Stellar Debris in Tidal Disruption Events
in The Astrophysical Journal
Halim S
(2021)
Assessing the survivability of biomarkers within terrestrial material impacting the lunar surface
in Icarus
Buzzo M
(2021)
Recovering the origins of the lenticular galaxy NGC 3115 using multiband imaging
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Šoltinskà T
(2021)
The detectability of strong 21 centimetre forest absorbers from the diffuse intergalactic medium in late reionisation models
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Van Loon M
(2021)
Explaining the scatter in the galaxy mass-metallicity relation with gas flows
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Zarrouk P
(2021)
Baryon acoustic oscillations in the projected cross-correlation function between the eBOSS DR16 quasars and photometric galaxies from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Baraffe I
(2021)
Two-dimensional simulations of solar-like models with artificially enhanced luminosity I. Impact on convective penetration
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Hill A
(2021)
The morphology of star-forming gas and its alignment with galaxies and dark matter haloes in the EAGLE simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Mitchell M
(2021)
A general framework to test gravity using galaxy clusters IV: cluster and halo properties in DGP gravity
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Nightingale J
(2021)
PyAutoFit: A Classy Probabilistic Programming Language for Model Composition and Fitting
in Journal of Open Source Software
Barnes D
(2021)
Characterizing hydrostatic mass bias with mock-X
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Robertson A
(2021)
The galaxy-galaxy strong lensing cross-sections of simulated ?CDM galaxy clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Beane S
(2021)
Charged multihadron systems in lattice QCD + QED
in Physical Review D
Clough K
(2021)
Continuity equations for general matter: applications in numerical relativity
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Elsender D
(2021)
The statistical properties of protostellar discs and their dependence on metallicity
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Blum T
(2021)
Lattice determination of I = 0 and 2 p p scattering phase shifts with a physical pion mass
in Physical Review D
Schirra A
(2021)
Bringing faint active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to light: a view from large-scale cosmological simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Shao S
(2021)
The twisted dark matter halo of the Milky Way
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Lovell C
(2021)
Reproducing submillimetre galaxy number counts with cosmological hydrodynamic simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Drach V
(2021)
Scattering of Goldstone bosons and resonance production in a composite Higgs model on the lattice
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Mou Z
(2021)
Simulations of a bubble wall interacting with an electroweak plasma
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Allanson O
(2021)
Electron Diffusion and Advection During Nonlinear Interactions With Whistler-Mode Waves
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Izquierdo A
(2021)
The Cloud Factory II: gravoturbulent kinematics of resolved molecular clouds in a galactic potential
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
| Description | In December 2009, the STFC Facility, DiRAC, was established to provide distributed High Performance Computing (HPC) services for theoretical modelling and HPC-based research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology. DiRAC provides a variety of computer architectures, matching machine architecture to the algorithm design and requirements of the research problems to be solved. This grant funds the continued operation of the 1.3Pflop/s Blue Gene/Q system at the University of Edinburgh, which was co-developed by Peter Boyle (University of Edinburgh) and IBM to run with high energy efficiency for months at a time on a single problem to solve some of the most complex problems in physics, particularly the strong interactions of quarks and gluons. The DiRAC Facility supports over 250 active researchers at 27 UK HEIs. This includes the research projects of 100 funded research staff (PDRAs and Research Fellows), over 50 post-graduate projects, and £1.6M of funded research grants. |
| Exploitation Route | Theoretical results obtained input to a range of experimental programmes aiming to increase our understanding of Nature. Algorithms and software developed provide input to computer design. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
| URL | http://dirac.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Intel IPAG QCD codesign project |
| Organisation | Intel Corporation |
| Department | Intel Corporation (Jones Farm) |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | We have collaborated with Intel corporation since 2014 with $720k of total direct funding, starting initially as an Intel parallel computing centre, and expanding to direct close collaboration with Intel Pathfinding and Architecture Group. |
| Collaborator Contribution | We have performed detailed optimisation of QCD codes (Wilson, Domain Wall, Staggered) on Intel many core architectures. We have investigated the memory system and interconnect performance, particularly on Intel's latest interconnect hardware called Omnipath. We found serious performance issues and worked with Intel to plan a solution and this has been verified and is available as beta software. It will reach general availability in the Intel MPI 2019 release, and allow threaded concurrent communications in MPI for the first time. A joint paper on the resolution to this was written with the Intel MPI team, and the application of the same QCD programming techniques to machine learning gradient reduction was applied in the paper to the Baidu Research all reduce library, demonstrating a 10x gain for this critical step in machine learning in clustered environments. We are also working with Intel verifying future architectures that will deliver the exascale performance in 2021. |
| Impact | We have performed detailed optimisation of QCD codes (Wilson, Domain Wall, Staggered) on Intel many core architectures. We have investigated the memory system and interconnect performance, particularly on Intel's latest interconnect hardware called Omnipath. We found serious performance issues and worked with Intel to plan a solution and this has been verified and is available as beta software. It will reach general availability in the Intel MPI 2019 release, and allow threaded concurrent communications in MPI for the first time. A joint paper on the resolution to this was written with the Intel MPI team, and the application of the same QCD programming techniques to machine learning gradient reduction was applied in the paper to the Baidu Research all reduce library, demonstrating a 10x gain for this critical step in machine learning in clustered environments. This collaboration has been renewed annually in 2018, 2019, 2020. Two DiRAC RSE's were hired by Intel to work on the Turing collaboration. |
| Start Year | 2016 |