Code Speedup Strengthens Researchers' Grasp of Neutrons
Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - 11:20
in Physics & Chemistry
A team led by James Vary of Iowa State University simulated clusters of neutrons called "neutron drops" to understand their properties better. The ab initio calculations, or calculations based on fundamental forces and principles, were performed on the Titan supercomputer at the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Titan is the flagship machine of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility. Leveraging Titan's massive memory and computing power, the team was able to determine the ground-state energies and other properties of systems of up to 40 neutrons. The results were published in the December 2014 issue of Physics Letters B.