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
Vidal J
(2020)
Efficiency of tidal dissipation in slowly rotating fully convective stars or planets
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Elliott E
(2021)
Efficient exploration and calibration of a semi-analytical model of galaxy formation with deep learning
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Woss A
(2020)
Efficient solution of the multichannel Lüscher determinant condition through eigenvalue decomposition
in Physical Review D
Raducan S
(2022)
Ejecta distribution and momentum transfer from oblique impacts on asteroid surfaces
in Icarus
Buividovich P
(2020)
Electric conductivity in finite-density S U ( 2 ) lattice gauge theory with dynamical fermions
in Physical Review D
Guo FK
(2015)
Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron from 2+1 Flavor Lattice QCD.
in Physical review letters
Yachmenev A
(2021)
Electric quadrupole transitions in carbon dioxide.
in The Journal of chemical physics
Aarts G
(2015)
Electrical conductivity and charge diffusion in thermal QCD from the lattice
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Kordov Z
(2020)
Electromagnetic contribution to S - ? mixing using lattice QCD + QED
in Physical Review D
Di Carlo M
(2022)
Electromagnetic finite-size effects beyond the point-like approximation
in EPJ Web of Conferences
Chambers A
(2017)
Electromagnetic form factors at large momenta from lattice QCD
in Physical Review D
Allanson O
(2021)
Electron Diffusion and Advection During Nonlinear Interactions With Whistler-Mode Waves
in Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Hutchinson A
(2022)
Energetic proton back-precipitation onto the solar atmosphere in relation to long-duration gamma-ray flares
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Agudelo Rueda J
(2022)
Energy Transport during 3D Small-scale Reconnection Driven by Anisotropic Plasma Turbulence
in The Astrophysical Journal
Kukstas E
(2020)
Environment from cross-correlations: connecting hot gas and the quenching of galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Attanasio F
(2022)
Equation of state from complex Langevin simulations
in EPJ Web of Conferences
Blum T
(2017)
Erratum to: Lattice calculation of the leading strange quark-connected contribution to the muon g - 2
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Creci G
(2020)
Evolution of black hole shadows from superradiance
in Physical Review D
Beg R
(2022)
Evolution, Structure, and Topology of Self-generated Turbulent Reconnection Layers
in The Astrophysical Journal
Bertulani C
(2021)
Examination of the sensitivity of quasifree reactions to details of the bound-state overlap functions
in Physical Review C
Ryan S
(2021)
Excited and exotic bottomonium spectroscopy from lattice QCD
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Johnson C
(2021)
Excited J - - meson resonances at the SU(3) flavor point from lattice QCD
in Physical Review D
Yurchenko S
(2020)
ExoMol line lists - XL. Rovibrational molecular line list for the hydronium ion (H3O+)
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
Owens A
(2022)
ExoMol line lists - XLVII. Rovibronic molecular line list of the calcium monohydroxide radical (CaOH)
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Yurchenko S
(2020)
ExoMol line lists - XXXIX. Ro-vibrational molecular line list for CO2
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
Yurchenko S
(2020)
ExoMol molecular line lists - XXXVII. Spectra of acetylene
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
Stafford S
(2020)
Exploring extensions to the standard cosmological model and the impact of baryons on small scales
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Van Daalen M
(2020)
Exploring the effects of galaxy formation on matter clustering through a library of simulation power spectra
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cummins D
(2022)
Extreme pebble accretion in ringed protoplanetary discs
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Trayford J
(2020)
Fade to grey: systematic variation of galaxy attenuation curves with galaxy properties in the eagle simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Miles P
(2020)
Fallback Rates from Partial Tidal Disruption Events
in The Astrophysical Journal
Trotta D
(2020)
Fast Acceleration of Transrelativistic Electrons in Astrophysical Turbulence
in The Astrophysical Journal
Porth L
(2020)
Fast estimation of aperture mass statistics - I. Aperture mass variance and an application to the CFHTLenS data
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Porth L
(2021)
Fast estimation of aperture-mass statistics - II. Detectability of higher order statistics in current and future surveys
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Hernández-Aguayo C
(2022)
Fast full N-body simulations of generic modified gravity: derivative coupling models
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Oppenheimer B
(2020)
Feedback from supermassive black holes transforms centrals into passive galaxies by ejecting circumgalactic gas
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Kong S
(2022)
Filament formation via collision-induced magnetic reconnection - formation of a star cluster
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cataldi P
(2022)
Fingerprints of modified gravity on galaxies in voids
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Hergt L
(2022)
Finite inflation in curved space
in Physical Review D
Aarts G
(2016)
Finite Temperature Lattice QCD --- Baryons in the Quark--Gluon Plasma
in Acta Physica Polonica B Proceedings Supplement
Christ N
(2016)
First exploratory calculation of the long-distance contributions to the rare kaon decays K ? p l + l -
in Physical Review D
Roper W
(2022)
First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations ( flares ) - IV. The size evolution of galaxies at z = 5
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Vijayan A
(2022)
First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) - III. The properties of massive dusty galaxies at cosmic dawn
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Wilkins S
(2022)
First Light and Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) - VI. The colour evolution of galaxies z = 5-15
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Vijayan A
(2020)
First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) II: The Photometric Properties of High-Redshift Galaxies
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 |