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
Fowlie A
(2022)
Nested Sampling for Frequentist Computation: Fast Estimation of Small p-Values.
in Physical review letters
Fowlie A
(2022)
Nested Sampling for Frequentist Computation: Fast Estimation of Small p -Values
in Physical Review Letters
Franci L
(2022)
Anisotropic Electron Heating in Turbulence-driven Magnetic Reconnection in the Near-Sun Solar Wind
in The Astrophysical Journal
Franci L
(2020)
Modeling MMS Observations at the Earth's Magnetopause with Hybrid Simulations of Alfvénic Turbulence
in The Astrophysical Journal
Frenk C
(2020)
The little things matter: relating the abundance of ultrafaint satellites to the hosts' assembly history
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Frenk C
(2020)
The missing dwarf galaxies of the Local Group
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fumagalli M
(2020)
Detecting neutral hydrogen at z ? 3 in large spectroscopic surveys of quasars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Fyfe L
(2021)
Forward modelling of heating within a coronal arcade
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Gaikwad P
(2020)
Probing the thermal state of the intergalactic medium at z > 5 with the transmission spikes in high-resolution Ly a forest spectra
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gaikwad P
(2021)
A consistent and robust measurement of the thermal state of the IGM at 2 = z = 4 from a large sample of Ly a forest spectra: evidence for late and rapid He ii reionization
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Ganeshaiah Veena P
(2021)
Cosmic Ballet III: Halo spin evolution in the cosmic web
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Garron N
(2016)
Neutral kaon mixing beyond the Standard Model with nf = 2 + 1 chiral fermions. Part 1: bare matrix elements and physical results
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Garzilli A
(2020)
Measuring the temperature and profiles of Ly a absorbers
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Garzilli A
(2021)
How to constrain warm dark matter with the Lyman-a forest
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Genina A
(2020)
To ß or not to ß: can higher order Jeans analysis break the mass-anisotropy degeneracy in simulated dwarfs?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Genina A
(2022)
Can tides explain the low dark matter density in Fornax?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gerosa D
(2022)
The irreducible mass and the horizon area of LIGO's black holes
in Classical and Quantum Gravity
Ghosh S
(2022)
Age dissection of the vertical breathing motions in Gaia DR2: evidence for spiral driving
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Givans J
(2022)
Non-linearities in the Lyman-a forest and in its cross-correlation with dark matter halos
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Glowacki M
(2020)
The baryonic Tully-Fisher relation in the simba simulation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Glowacki M
(2021)
The redshift evolution of the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation in SIMBA
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Glowacki M
(2022)
ASymba: H i global profile asymmetries in the simba simulation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gonzalez-Perez V
(2020)
Do model emission line galaxies live in filaments at z ~ 1?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Goyal J
(2020)
A library of self-consistent simulated exoplanet atmospheres
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Grand R
(2020)
The biggest splash
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Grand R
(2021)
Determining the full satellite population of a Milky Way-mass halo in a highly resolved cosmological hydrodynamic simulation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gratton S
(2020)
Understanding parameter differences between analyses employing nested data subsets
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Grebel E
(2020)
The mass fraction of halo stars contributed by the disruption of globular clusters in the E-MOSAICS simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Griffin A
(2020)
AGNs at the cosmic dawn: predictions for future surveys from a ?CDM cosmological model
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Grisdale K
(2021)
Physical properties and scaling relations of molecular clouds: the impact of star formation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gronow S
(2021)
Double detonations of sub-M Ch CO white dwarfs: variations in Type Ia supernovae due to different core and He shell masses
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Gronow S
(2020)
SNe Ia from double detonations: Impact of core-shell mixing on the carbon ignition mechanism
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Gronow S
(2021)
Metallicity-dependent nucleosynthetic yields of Type Ia supernovae originating from double detonations of sub- M Ch white dwarfs
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Grove C
(2022)
The DESI N -body simulation project - I. Testing the robustness of simulations for the DESI dark time survey
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gu Q
(2022)
The spatial distribution of satellites in galaxy clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Guandalin C
(2021)
Observing relativistic features in large-scale structure surveys - I. Multipoles of the power spectrum
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Guilluy G
(2020)
ARES IV: Probing the Atmospheres of the Two Warm Small Planets HD 106315c and HD 3167c with the HST/WFC3 Camera
in The Astronomical Journal
Guo FK
(2015)
Electric Dipole Moment of the Neutron from 2+1 Flavor Lattice QCD.
in Physical review letters
Guo Y
(2020)
Metal Enrichment in the Circumgalactic Medium and Ly a Halos around Quasars at z ~ 3
in The Astrophysical Journal
Gupta P
(2022)
A study of global magnetic helicity in self-consistent spherical dynamos
in Geophysical & Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics
Gurung-López S
(2021)
Determining the systemic redshift of Lyman a emitters with neural networks and improving the measured large-scale clustering
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gurung-López S
(2019)
Lya emitters in a cosmological volume II: the impact of the intergalactic medium
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gómez J
(2022)
Halo merger tree comparison: impact on galaxy formation models
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gómez-Guijarro C
(2020)
How primordial magnetic fields shrink galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Habouzit M
(2021)
Supermassive black holes in cosmological simulations I: M BH - M ? relation and black hole mass function
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Haehnelt M
(2020)
Probing delayed-end reionization histories with the 21-cm LAE cross-power spectrum
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Haidar H
(2022)
The black hole population in low-mass galaxies in large-scale cosmological simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Halim S
(2021)
Assessing the survivability of biomarkers within terrestrial material impacting the lunar surface
in Icarus
Hall C
(2020)
Predicting the Kinematic Evidence of Gravitational Instability
in The Astrophysical Journal
| 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 |