An Integrated Science Environment for Astrophysical Simulations

天体物理模拟的综合科学环境

基本信息

批准号：
1048505
负责人：
Matthew Turk
金额：
$ 24万
依托单位：
Turk Matthew J
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2011
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2011-01-01 至 2013-12-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1048505&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Integrated Science Environment Astrophysical Simulations

项目摘要

Astrophysical simulation codes, as well as astrophysical data, have grown increasingly complex: simulations are now able to probe the formation of stars, galaxies, black holes and many other disparate phenomena. However, as simulations become larger, and the physical models governing those simulations become more complex, the inherent difficulties in developing simulation codes and analyzing the data output from these simulations grow commensurately. Many different, often competing, groups utilize independent simulation platforms, which prevents substantial collaboration as a result of technical incompatibilities. To mitigate this fragmentation, this research involves the creation of an Integrated Science Environment for both astrophysical computation and visualization. This Integrated Science Environment is designed to work equally well for new users as well as for petascale simulations on platforms such as the NSF-funded Blue Waters. The Integrated Science Environment produced by this research is constructed out of three primary components: a simulation platform interface, an initial conditions generator, and an analysis and visualization engine. The simulation platform interface abstracts the internal data structures and unit-handling of individual simulation platforms into physically-relevant quantities, providing a compatibility layer enabling microphysical solvers (such as chemistry, radiative cooling, and hydrodynamics) to be applied to multiple platforms unmodified. The initial conditions generator creates the starting points for astrophysical simulations, enabling both intuitive initial conditions generation and straightforward cross-code comparison and validation of results. Finally, the analysis engine produces high-quality quantitative results and visualizations, including planetarium-quality visualization tools. The Integrated Science Environment is fully MPI-parallelized and is written primarily in Python with APIs for in situ or concurrent analysis and visualization to be conducted during the course of a simulation, scaling up to hundreds of thousands of processors.

天体物理模拟代码以及天体物理数据变得越来越复杂：模拟现在能够探测恒星、星系、黑洞和许多其他不同现象的形成。然而，随着模拟变得越来越大，并且控制这些模拟的物理模型变得越来越复杂，开发模拟代码和分析这些模拟的数据输出的固有困难也相应增加。许多不同的、经常相互竞争的团体利用独立的模拟平台，由于技术不兼容而阻碍了实质性的合作。为了减轻这种碎片化，这项研究涉及创建一个用于天体物理计算和可视化的综合科学环境。这种综合科学环境的设计既适合新用户，也适合在 NSF 资助的 Blue Waters 等平台上进行千万亿级模拟。本研究产生的综合科学环境由三个主要组件构成：模拟平台界面、初始条件生成器以及分析和可视化引擎。仿真平台接口将各个仿真平台的内部数据结构和单元处理抽象为物理相关量，提供兼容层，使微物理求解器（例如化学、辐射冷却和流体动力学）能够不经修改地应用于多个平台。初始条件生成器为天体物理模拟创建起点，从而实现直观的初始条件生成以及直接的跨代码比较和结果验证。最后，分析引擎产生高质量的定量结果和可视化，包括天文馆质量的可视化工具。集成科学环境完全 MPI 并行化，主要用 Python 编写，带有 API，用于在模拟过程中进行原位或并发分析和可视化，最多可扩展到数十万个处理器。