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
Despali G
(2020)
The lensing properties of subhaloes in massive elliptical galaxies in sterile neutrino cosmologies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
De Belsunce R
(2022)
Testing for spectral index variations in polarized CMB foregrounds
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Di Carlo M
(2022)
Electromagnetic finite-size effects beyond the point-like approximation
in EPJ Web of Conferences
Dickey C
(2021)
IQ Collaboratory. II. The Quiescent Fraction of Isolated, Low-mass Galaxies across Simulations and Observations
in The Astrophysical Journal
Dillamore A
(2022)
Merger-induced galaxy transformations in the artemis simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
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
Dobbs C
(2022)
The formation of massive stellar clusters in converging galactic flows with photoionization
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dobbs C
(2020)
The formation of young massive clusters by colliding flows
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Dobbs C
(2022)
The formation of clusters and OB associations in different density spiral arm environments
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dome T
(2023)
On the cosmic web elongation in fuzzy dark matter cosmologies: Effects on density profiles, shapes, and alignments of haloes
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Donevski D
(2020)
In pursuit of giants I. The evolution of the dust-to-stellar mass ratio in distant dusty galaxies
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Drach V
(2022)
Singlet channel scattering in a composite Higgs model on the lattice
in The European Physical Journal C
Drach V
(2020)
Composite electroweak sectors on the lattice
Drach V
(2021)
Scattering of Goldstone bosons and resonance production in a composite Higgs model on the lattice
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Dragos J
(2016)
Nucleon matrix elements using the variational method in lattice QCD
in Physical Review D
Drew A
(2022)
Radiation from global topological strings using adaptive mesh refinement: Methodology and massless modes
in Physical Review D
Drewes N
(2021)
On the Dynamics of Low-viscosity Warped Disks around Black Holes
in The Astrophysical Journal
Drummond B
(2020)
Implications of three-dimensional chemical transport in hot Jupiter atmospheres: Results from a consistently coupled chemistry-radiation-hydrodynamics model
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Duguid C
(2019)
Tidal flows with convection: frequency-dependence of the effective viscosity and evidence for anti-dissipation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Duguid C
(2020)
Convective turbulent viscosity acting on equilibrium tidal flows: new frequency scaling of the effective viscosity
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dutta R
(2021)
Metal-enriched halo gas across galaxy overdensities over the last 10 billion years
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Dutta R
(2020)
MUSE Analysis of Gas around Galaxies (MAGG) - II: metal-enriched halo gas around z ~ 1 galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Eager-Nash J
(2020)
Implications of different stellar spectra for the climate of tidally locked Earth-like exoplanets
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Edwards B
(2020)
ARES I: WASP-76 b, A Tale of Two HST Spectra*
in The Astronomical Journal
Edwards B
(2020)
Hubble WFC3 Spectroscopy of the Habitable-zone Super-Earth LHS 1140 b
in The Astronomical Journal
Eke V
(2020)
Understanding the large inferred Einstein radii of observed low-mass galaxy clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Elbers W
(2021)
An optimal non-linear method for simulating relic neutrinos
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Elbers W
(2022)
Higher order initial conditions with massive neutrinos
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
Elsender D
(2021)
The statistical properties of protostellar discs and their dependence on metallicity
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Elvis M
(2020)
Q wind code release: a non-hydrodynamical approach to modelling line-driven winds in active galactic nuclei
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Errani R
(2021)
The asymptotic tidal remnants of cold dark matter subhaloes
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Etherington A
(2022)
Automated galaxy-galaxy strong lens modelling: No lens left behind
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Evans T
(2022)
Observing EAGLE galaxies with JWST : predictions for Milky Way progenitors and their building blocks
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Evans T
(2020)
How unusual is the Milky Way's assembly history?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Falck B
(2021)
Indra: a public computationally accessible suite of cosmological N -body simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Falle S
(2020)
Thermal instability revisited
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fattahi A
(2020)
A tale of two populations: surviving and destroyed dwarf galaxies and the build-up of the Milky Way's stellar halo
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Figueras P
(2020)
Gravitational collapse in cubic Horndeski theories
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Fiteni K
(2021)
The relative efficiencies of bars and clumps in driving disc stars to retrograde motion
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Font A
(2021)
Can cosmological simulations capture the diverse satellite populations of observed Milky Way analogues?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Font A
(2020)
The artemis simulations: stellar haloes of Milky Way-mass galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Font A
(2022)
Quenching of satellite galaxies of Milky Way analogues: reconciling theory and observations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Forouhar Moreno V
(2022)
Galactic satellite systems in CDM, WDM and SIDM
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Forouhar Moreno V
(2022)
Baryon-driven decontraction in Milky Way-mass haloes
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fossati M
(2021)
MUSE analysis of gas around galaxies (MAGG) - III. The gas and galaxy environment of z = 3-4.5 quasars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Foster C
(2021)
The MAGPI survey: Science goals, design, observing strategy, early results and theoretical framework
in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
| 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 |