The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science announced allocations of supercomputer access to 51 high-impact computational science projects for 2021 through its Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. The projects will support large-scale research campaigns to advance knowledge in areas ranging from cosmology and earth systems modeling to sustainable energy technologies and materials design and discovery.

INCITE is jointly managed by the DOE’s Leadership Computing Facilities at Argonne and Oak Ridge. Open to any researcher or research organization in the world with a computationally intensive project that’s pursuing transformational advances in science and engineering, INCITE’s application process is highly competitive.

Below is a list of the 2021 INCITE award projects in which Berkeley Lab researchers are principal or co-investigators; the full list of awardees can be found here.

Approaching Exascale Models of Astrophysical Explosions

Principal Investigator: Michael Zingale, Stony Brook University

Co-Investigators: Max Katz, NVIDIA; Alice Harpole, Stony Brook University; Ann Almgren, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; John Bell, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Alan Calder, Stony Brook University; Maria Barrios-Sazo, Stony Brook University; Kiran Eiden, University of California, Berkeley; Brian Friesen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Doreen Fan, Stony Brook University; Andy Nonaka, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Don Wilcox, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Jean Sexton, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Allocation: 700,000 Summit node hours (Oak Ridge)

Research Summary: Zingale’s team will use Summit to advance their state-of-the-art simulations of two astrophysical environments: X-ray bursts and white dwarf mergers to unprecedented realism.

Energy Exascale Earth System Model

Principal Investigator: Mark Taylor, Sandia National Laboratories

Co-Investigators: David Bader, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Peter Caldwell, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Walter Hannah, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Phil Jones, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Noel Keen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; L. Ruby Leung, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Matthew Norman, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Sarat Sreepathi, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Allocation: 1.2 million Theta node hours Argonne; 530,000 Summit node hours at Oak Ridge

Research Summary: This INCITE project supports the Energy Exascale Earth System model (E3SM), a multi-laboratory project developing a leading-edge climate and Earth system designed to address DOE mission needs. E3SM will be used to compute climate sensitivity to elevated greenhouse gases.

High-Fidelity Gyrokinetic Simulation of Tokamak and ITER Edge Physics

Principal Investigator: Choongseock Chang, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Co-Investigators: Mark Adams, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Luis Chacon, Los Alamos National Laboratory; R. Michael Churchill, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Michael Cole, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Stéphane Ethier, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Robert Hager, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Scott Klasky, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Seung-Hoe Ku, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Scott Parker, University of Colorado; Aaron Scheinberg, Jubilee Development; Mark Shephard, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Sarat Sreepathi, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Benjamin Sturdevant, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Allocation: 1.3 million Theta node hours at Argonne; 900,000 Summit node hours at Oak Ridge

Research Summary: This project uses use the gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code XGC to study two fundamental edge physics issues critical to the success of ITER and the magnetic fusion energy programs: understanding and thus promoting innovative ways to achieve the transition from low- to high-confinement mode operation; and a high-enough plasma edge pedestal in the high-mode with a wall heat-flux density below the material limit.

Novel Methods for Complex Excited-State Phenomena in Functional Materials

Principal Investigator: Jack Deslippe, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Co-Investigators: Steven Louie, University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Jeffrey Neaton, University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; James Chelikowsky, University of Texas, Austin; Felipe H. da Jornada, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Diana Y. Qiu, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Yale University; Sivan Refaely-Abramson, Weizmann Institute of Science; Marina Filip, University of Oxford

Allocation: 400,000 Summit node hours at Oak Ridge

Research Summary: Deslippe’s team is applying and advancing state-of-the-art ab initio approaches to understand and predict complex excited-state phenomena in novel and functional materials. The team will explore various types of systems of structural complexity and emerging scientific interest to understand the underlying interactions dominating their optoelectronic properties and the structural dependencies of those interactions, thus identifying principles to rationally design new materials with optimal properties.

PlasmaMirrors ‘in Silico’: Extreme Intensity Light Sources and Compact Particle Accelerators

Principal Investigator: Jean-Luc Vay, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Co-Investigators: Henri Vincenti, Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique; Axel Huebl, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Allocation: 165,000 Summit node hours at Oak Ridge

Research Summary: Relativistic plasma mirrors (PM), produced when a high-power laser hits a solid target, can provide very promising compact sources of relativistic electron, ions, and very intense extreme ultraviolet Doppler harmonic light sources. This project aims to show, in silico and using massively parallel pseudo-spectral particle-in-cell simulations, that such PMs can provide a simple and common elegant solution to three long-standing challenges of ultrahigh-intensity physics.

Simulating Collapsar Accretion Disks and Luminous Transitional Disks

Principal Investigator: Alexander Tchekhovskoy, Northwestern University

Co-Investigators: Rodrigo Fernandez, University of Alberta; Francois Foucart, University of New Hampshire; Dimitrios Giannios, Purdue University; Daniel Kasen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Matthew Liska, Harvard University; Philipp Moesta, University of Amsterdam

Allocation: 300,000 Summit node hours at Oak Ridge

Research Summary: Unleashing the GPU power of the Summit supercomputer, Tchekhovskoy’s team will address two longstanding problems or science goals: how do dying massive stars, or collapsars, produce heavy elements, such as gold and platinum, and how does radiation cause black hole feeding disks of gas to clump up and transition to a new luminous state.