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
Beraldo e Silva L
(2021)
Co-formation of the thin and thick discs revealed by APOGEE-DR16 and Gaia -DR2
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
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
Ragusa E
(2021)
Circumbinary and circumstellar discs around the eccentric binary IRAS 04158+2805 - a testbed for binary-disc interaction
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Desmond H
(2021)
Five percent measurement of the gravitational constant in the Large Magellanic Cloud
in Physical Review D
Poncelet R
(2021)
NNLO QCD study of polarised W+W- production at the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Acuto A
(2021)
The BAHAMAS project: evaluating the accuracy of the halo model in predicting the non-linear matter power spectrum
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Borrow J
(2021)
Inconsistencies arising from the coupling of galaxy formation sub-grid models to pressure-smoothed particle hydrodynamics
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cossu G
(2021)
Nonperturbative Infrared Finiteness in a Superrenormalizable Scalar Quantum Field Theory.
in Physical review letters
Thomas N
(2021)
The radio galaxy population in the simba simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Ho S
(2021)
How Identifying Circumgalactic Gas by Line-of-sight Velocity instead of the Location in 3D Space Affects O vi Measurements
in The Astrophysical Journal
Nightingale J
(2021)
PyAutoFit: A Classy Probabilistic Programming Language for Model Composition and Fitting
in Journal of Open Source Software
Silva HO
(2021)
Dynamical Descalarization in Binary Black Hole Mergers.
in Physical review letters
Popescu A
(2021)
NNLO QCD study of polarised $W^+W^-$ production at the LHC
Welsh L
(2021)
The stochastic enrichment of Population II stars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Coates L
(2021)
Observing relativistic features in large-scale structure surveys - II. Doppler magnification in an ensemble of relativistic simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Williams C
(2021)
ALMA Measures Rapidly Depleted Molecular Gas Reservoirs in Massive Quiescent Galaxies at z ~ 1.5
in The Astrophysical Journal
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
Semenov M
(2021)
Rovibronic spectroscopy of PN from first principles.
in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
Richings J
(2021)
A high-resolution cosmological simulation of a strong gravitational lens
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Chubb K
(2021)
The ExoMolOP database: Cross sections and k -tables for molecules of interest in high-temperature exoplanet atmospheres
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Johnson C
(2021)
Excited J - - meson resonances at the SU(3) flavor point from lattice QCD
in Physical Review D
Mitchell M
(2021)
A general framework to test gravity using galaxy clusters III: observable-mass scaling relations in f ( R ) gravity
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Robertson A
(2021)
The surprising accuracy of isothermal Jeans modelling of self-interacting dark matter density profiles
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
MacTaggart D
(2021)
Direct evidence that twisted flux tube emergence creates solar active regions.
in Nature communications
Pontzen A
(2021)
EDGE: a new approach to suppressing numerical diffusion in adaptive mesh simulations of galaxy formation
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Theuns T
(2021)
Connecting cosmological accretion to strong Ly a absorbers
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Steele T
(2021)
Precise calibration of the one-loop bispectrum in the effective field theory of large scale structure
in Physical Review D
Igoshev A
(2021)
3D Magnetothermal Simulations of Tangled Crustal Magnetic Field in Central Compact Objects
in The Astrophysical Journal
Drach V
(2021)
Scattering of Goldstone bosons and resonance production in a composite Higgs model on the lattice
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Deason A
(2021)
The mass of the Milky Way out to 100 kpc using halo stars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Agudelo Rueda J
(2021)
Three-dimensional magnetic reconnection in particle-in-cell simulations of anisotropic plasma turbulence
in Journal of Plasma Physics
Barrera-Hinojosa C
(2021)
Vector modes in ?CDM: the gravitomagnetic potential in dark matter haloes from relativistic N -body simulations
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
Drewes N
(2021)
On the Dynamics of Low-viscosity Warped Disks around Black Holes
in The Astrophysical Journal
Richings A
(2021)
Unravelling the physics of multiphase AGN winds through emission line tracers
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Haworth T
(2021)
Warm millimetre dust in protoplanetary discs near massive stars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Silva HO
(2021)
Dynamical Descalarization in Binary Black Hole Mergers.
in Physical review letters
Kelly A
(2021)
The origin of X-ray coronae around simulated disc galaxies
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
Jones C
(2021)
Fully developed anelastic convection with no-slip boundaries
in Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Shao S
(2021)
The survival of globular clusters in a cuspy Fornax
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
Beckett A
(2021)
The relationship between gas and galaxies at z < 1 using the Q0107 quasar triplet
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Mellor T
(2021)
Artificial Symmetries for Calculating Vibrational Energies of Linear Molecules
in Symmetry
Norman S
(2021)
Stars Crushed by Black Holes. I. On the Energy Distribution of Stellar Debris in Tidal Disruption Events
in The Astrophysical Journal
Martin-Alvarez S
(2021)
Unravelling the origin of magnetic fields in galaxies
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
Bertulani C
(2021)
Examination of the sensitivity of quasifree reactions to details of the bound-state overlap functions
in Physical Review C
Bamber J
(2021)
Growth of accretion driven scalar hair around Kerr black holes
in Physical Review D
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 |