SCREMS: Next Generation Parallel Computing Infrastructure for Numerical Relativity

罗切斯特理工学院数学科学学院计算相对论和引力中心将购买一个计算机集群，专门用于支持数学科学的研究。该设备将用于几个研究项目，特别是：开发新的、高效的、极高精度的数值算法来解决广义相对论和磁流体动力学（GRMHD）的非线性方程。由于流体材料和磁场中的冲击所带来的小尺度特征，磁流体动力学在数值上是一个困难的挑战。这个问题只能使用高阶有限差分方法（大于四阶）来有效解决，包括那些设计用于进化保守系统的方法，以及高度可扩展的自适应网格细化（AMR）算法。在不久的将来，下一代多核处理器预计将拥有多达32个单独的核，而超过64核的计算节点也将紧随其后。因此，挑战在于如何在这些多核系统上有效地并行化算法。我们将通过openMP和MPI的组合优化节点间和节点内通信来实现这一点。提议的集群最初将有12个节点（在第二年升级到16个），每个节点包含8核和16gb RAM，通过高速，低延迟的infiniband网络相互连接，将模拟这些未来的集群，以便我们可以开发新的算法。这个集群将作为未来3年发展数值技术和执行GRMHD模拟的核心工作。该奖项的部分支持来自引力物理项目。

The Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation in the Schoolof Mathematical Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology willpurchase a computer cluster which will be dedicated to the support ofresearch in the mathematical sciences. The equipment will be used forseveral research projects including in particular: the development ofnew, highly efficient, extremely high accuracy numerical algorithms tosolve the non-linear equations of general relativisticmagnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD). Magnetohydrodynamics represents adifficult challenge numerically due to the small-scale featuresintroduced by shocks in the fluid material and the magnetic fields.The problem can only be tackled efficiently using higher-order finitedifferencing methods (greater than fourth-order), including thosedesigned to evolve conservative systems, in conjunction withhighly-scalable adaptive-mesh-refinement (AMR) algorithms. The nextgeneration of multi-core processors are expected to have up to 32individual cores in the near future, and computational nodes with morethan 64 cores will soon follow. The challenge, then, is toefficiently parallelize the algorithm on these many-core systems. Wewill do this by optimizing inter and intra-node communication via acombination of openMP and MPI. The proposed cluster, which willinitially have 12 nodes (upgraded to 16 in year 2), each containing 8cores and 16 GB of RAM, interconnected with a high-speed, low-latencyInfiniBand network, will model these future clusters so that we candevelop new algorithms. This cluster will act as the central workhorsefor developing numerical techniques and performing GRMHD simulationsfor the next 3 years.Partial support for this award is from PHY, Gravitational Physics program.