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
Halim S
(2021)
Assessing the survivability of biomarkers within terrestrial material impacting the lunar surface
in Icarus
Yachmenev A
(2021)
Electric quadrupole transitions in carbon dioxide.
in The Journal of chemical physics
Richings A
(2021)
Unravelling the physics of multiphase AGN winds through emission line tracers
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bartlett D
(2021)
Calibrating galaxy formation effects in galactic tests of fundamental physics
in Physical Review D
Kalaghatgi C
(2021)
Investigating the effect of in-plane spin directions for precessing binary black hole systems
in Physical Review D
Alioli S
(2021)
Four-lepton production in gluon fusion at NLO matched to parton showers
in The European Physical Journal C
Elbers W
(2021)
An optimal non-linear method for simulating relic neutrinos
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
Van Loon M
(2021)
Explaining the scatter in the galaxy mass-metallicity relation with gas flows
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Talbot R
(2021)
Blandford-Znajek jets in galaxy formation simulations: method and implementation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Jackson R
(2021)
Dark matter-deficient dwarf galaxies form via tidal stripping of dark matter in interactions with massive companions
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Nightingale J
(2021)
PyAutoLens: Open-Source Strong Gravitational Lensing
in Journal of Open Source Software
Suarez T
(2021)
Modelling intergalactic low ionization metal absorption line systems near the epoch of reionization
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Šoltinskí 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
Chawdhry H
(2021)
Two-loop leading-color helicity amplitudes for three-photon production at the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
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
Radia M
(2021)
Anomalies in the gravitational recoil of eccentric black-hole mergers with unequal mass ratios
in Physical Review D
Wareing C
(2021)
Striations, integrals, hourglasses, and collapse - thermal instability driven magnetic simulations of molecular clouds
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Lovell M
(2021)
The spatial distribution of Milky Way satellites, gaps in streams, and the nature of dark matter
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
Manzoni G
(2021)
Modelling the quenching of star formation activity from the evolution of the colour-magnitude relation in VIPERS
in New Astronomy
Kordov Z
(2021)
State mixing and masses of the p 0 , ? and ? ' mesons from n f = 1 + 1 + 1 lattice QCD + QED
in Physical Review D
Czakon M
(2021)
B-hadron production in NNLO QCD: application to LHC t$$ \overline{t} $$ events with leptonic decays
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Lovell C
(2021)
First Light And Reionization Epoch Simulations (FLARES) - I. Environmental dependence of high-redshift galaxy evolution
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Clarke P
(2021)
Probing inflation with precision bispectra
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Hernández-Aguayo C
(2021)
Building a digital twin of a luminous red galaxy spectroscopic survey: galaxy properties and clustering covariance
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Olsen K
(2021)
sígame v3: Gas Fragmentation in Postprocessing of Cosmological Simulations for More Accurate Infrared Line Emission Modeling
in The Astrophysical Journal
Beane S
(2021)
Charged multihadron systems in lattice QCD + QED
in Physical Review D
Buividovich P
(2021)
Numerical study of the chiral separation effect in two-color QCD at finite density
in Physical Review D
Wurster J
(2021)
Do we need non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic to model protostellar discs?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Santos-Santos I
(2021)
Magellanic satellites in ?CDM cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the Local Group
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Moews B
(2021)
Hybrid analytic and machine-learned baryonic property insertion into galactic dark matter haloes
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Nixon C
(2021)
Accretion discs with non-zero central torque
in New Astronomy
Desmond H
(2021)
Five percent measurement of the gravitational constant in the Large Magellanic Cloud
in Physical Review D
Mukherjee S
(2021)
SEAGLE - II. Constraints on feedback models in galaxy formation from massive early-type strong-lens galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bahé Y
(2021)
Strongly lensed cluster substructures are not in tension with ?CDM
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Chawdhry H
(2021)
NNLO QCD corrections to diphoton production with an additional jet at the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Hughes M
(2021)
What to expect when using globular clusters as tracers of the total mass distribution in Milky Way-mass galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cui W
(2021)
The origin of galaxy colour bimodality in the scatter of the stellar-to-halo mass relation
in Nature Astronomy
Kelly A
(2021)
The origin of X-ray coronae around simulated disc galaxies
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Zhu Y
(2021)
Chasing the Tail of Cosmic Reionization with Dark Gap Statistics in the Lya Forest over 5 < z < 6
in The Astrophysical Journal
Haworth T
(2021)
Warm millimetre dust in protoplanetary discs near massive stars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
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
Czakon M
(2021)
NNLO QCD corrections to leptonic observables in top-quark pair production and decay
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Linh B
(2021)
Investigation of the ground-state spin inversion in the neutron-rich Cl 47 , 49 isotopes
in Physical Review C
Changeat Q
(2021)
The Hubble WFC3 Emission Spectrum of the Extremely Hot Jupiter KELT-9b
in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Falck B
(2021)
Indra: a public computationally accessible suite of cosmological N -body simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cao K
(2021)
Studying galaxy cluster morphological metrics with mock-X
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
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
Pedersen C
(2021)
An emulator for the Lyman-a forest in beyond-?CDM cosmologies
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
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 |