Collaborative Research: CDS&E: Renaissance Simulations Laboratory to Model and Explore the First Galaxies in the Universe

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A great challenge in astrophysics is to understand in detail how the initial smooth distribution of matter in the early Universe formed the first galaxies. Complementing observations of real galaxies, researchers use computational simulations to model the early Universe and study the results. This process allows one to learn how these first galaxies might have formed. However, the sheer size and complexity of such galaxy simulations present their own challenge as a single research group lacks the capacity to explore them fully. As a result, maximizing the scientific value of simulations demands new tools and services designed to foster the growth of a collaborative, multi-group research community. This project aims to develop and use a new virtual laboratory to enable transformative scientific inquiry on new and existing galaxy simulations, some of which were produced by prior NSF support. Enabling public access and unrestricted analysis and fostering a collaborative environment for sharing technology and results will ensure that galaxy simulations continue to be valuable within and beyond the research group that originally conducted them. This project addresses the national imperative to develop US cyber infrastructure and to develop US leadership in scientific research in astrophysics.More technically, with prior NSF support the investigators used the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) to perform the Renaissance Simulations: among the largest, most detailed simulations of the formation and evolution of the first galaxies to date. The Renaissance Simulations yielded a sample of over 3,000 high redshift (20 z 7) galaxies and were specifically designed to simulate the dominant sources responsible for preheating the intergalactic medium and reionization at an unprecedented level of detail. This project plans two related activities: (1) further analysis of the Renaissance Simulations; and (2) the creation of an open-data access portal, the Renaissance Simulation Laboratory (RSL), which will provide open access to this unique data corpus along with associated data analysis tools for the astronomical research community. Driving its design and utility, the investigators will use the RSL to carry out their own research investigations. The investigators' research processes will become part of the RSL in the form of executable "Jupyter" notebooks. The Jupyter Notebook, an evolution of the iPython Notebook, is a fundamental part of the RSL and is ushering in the era of open science. The investigators' use of Docker containers is equally compelling. By containerizing Jupyter Notebooks which execute pre-programmed data analysis workflows the investigators are able to bring computation to the data and share how they obtain their scientific results, a key step toward reproducible science. Users will have the option of downloading notebooks and associated data to their own platforms or executing them on San Diego Supercomputer Center and NCSA high performance platforms.