PPPL Scientists Awarded 111 Million Hours of Supercomputing Time To Advance Fusion Research Projects

Photo: Elle Starkman, PPPL

From left are PPPL scientists Weixing Wang, David Mikkelsen, Stephane Ethier, and William Tang with a plasma turbulence simulation in the background. Not pictured is W. W. Lee. Inset: PPPL scientist Greg Hammett.

Four research projects involving six PPPL scientists have been awarded a total of 111 million processor hours on supercomputers at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. The researchers will be using the time for fusion energy-related research regarding plasma turbulence simulations. Plasma is a hot, gaseous state of matter used as the fuel to produce fusion energy — the power source of the sun and the stars.

The PPPL projects are among 69 receiving a total of 1.6 billion supercomputing processor hours through the 2010 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program for large-scale, computationally intensive projects. The Department of Energy recently announced these awards for thirty-four new and 35 renewal projects to have access to some of the world's most powerful supercomputers at DOE national laboratories. This is the seventh year the INCITE program has awarded time on DOE supercomputers to universities, laboratories, other government agencies and industry.

"Computation and supercomputing are critical to solving some of our greatest scientific challenges," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "This year's INCITE awards reflect the enormous growth in demand for complex modeling and simulation capabilities, which are essential to improving our economic prosperity and global competitiveness."

Physicists Stephane Ethier, Greg Hammett, W.W. Lee, David Mikkelsen, William Tang, and Weixing Wang are the PPPL scientists involved in projects awarded. Wang, Ethier, and Lee are on a team receiving a new award for 34 million processor hours on the Cray XT at ORNL; Tang and Ethier are on a team receiving a renewal award for 12 million processor hours on the IBM Blue Gene/P at Argonne; Ethier is also on a team receiving a renewal award for a project receiving 35 million processor hours on the CRAY XT; and Hammett and Mikkelsen are on a team receiving a renewal award for a project receiving 30 million processor hours on the CRAY XT. PPPL's Wang and Tang are respectively the leading scientists for the first two awards.

PPPL Director Stewart Prager said, "These awards focus on the grand challenge problem of understanding turbulence in plasmas at small spatial scale and how it influences behavior of a large, hot fusion plasma. This understanding will affect our progress toward fusion, but have impact for turbulent behavior in other venues, such as astronomical plasmas."

To read about all the 2010 INCITE awards, go to the DOE Office of Science home page at http://www.er.doe.gov/ascr/incite/index.html.

News Release

PPPL's Park Receives New DOE Early Career Research Program Award

Photo: Elle Starkman, PPPL

Jong-Kyu Park with a National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) figure on one screen and an interior image of NSTX on the other.

PPPL physicist Jong-Kyu Park is among 69 scientists across the nation receiving grants under the new Early Career Research Program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The grants will be drawn from $85 million in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The new effort is designed to bolster the nation's scientific work force by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.

Full Story

The Mysteries of the Plasma Universe

Plasma Astrophysics Workshop at PPPL Draws Dozens of Scientists to Identify Puzzles, Map Strategies for Better Understanding

The Workshop on Opportunities in Plasma Astrophysics brought together several dozen experimentalists, astronomers and computational scientists from across the nation — and a few beyond the U.S. — to identify the major puzzles at the intersection of laboratory physics and space science, and to map out new strategies for better understanding the plasma universe. Several participants from the workshop, hosted by PPPL January 18-21, are above; a Hubble Space Telescope image of the Orion Nebula is in the background. Organizers are producing a conference report that identifies about 10 major research opportunities, and plan to discuss possible next steps with federal funding agencies. "I am glad the meeting was successful in bringing a very diverse community together for the first time, and I am hopeful that the meeting and the report it generates will help improve the standing and impacts of the field of plasma astrophysics," says PPPL's Hantao Ji, a co-organizer of the event. A preview story is here.

PPPL Honors Four Fusion Energy Researchers

During a January 14 reception at the Laboratory, PPPL honored four fusion energy researchers — Robert Kaita, Dick Majeski, Lane Roquemore, and Leonid Zakharov — for their scientific accomplishments. Physicists Kaita, Majeski, and Zakharov received the Kaul Prize for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research and Technology Development. Roquemore, an engineer, received the PPPL Distinguished Engineering Fellow award.

The Neutron Express

A ride around toy train tracks inside an experimental fusion machine can reveal much about a hot gas called plasma. PPPL research staff recently mounted a neutron source on a toy train inside the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), placed it on hobby train tracks that had been installed and sent it on a three-day continuous zip around the rails. The purpose: to calibrate the neutron rate during fusion experiments. Above, PPPL technician Sly Vinson installs the tracks at NSTX.

Princeton University "spotlighted"

Princeton University is being "spotlighted" on a Department of Energy web site as part of a new project called .EDUconnections.

http://www.osti.gov/EDUconnections/

According to the DOE's Office of Scientific and Technical Information, the project "spotlights institutions committed to supporting and advancing scientific research programs at DOE." The Princeton spotlight features the Miniature Integrated Nuclear Detection System at PPPL.