Acquisition of a High-Performance Computing Cluster for Solar-Terrestrial Research

University Of New Hampshire, Durham NH

Investigators

Abstract

This Major Research Instrumentation award is for the acquisition of a high performance computing cluster to facilitate the study of solar-terrestrial physics at the University of New Hampshire's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS). The computing equipment will support studies related to the Geospace Environment Modeling program and the National Space Weather Program. The primary challenge of these programs is to model the flow of energy from coronal mass ejections on the sun via the solar wind, through Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere, ultimately resulting in atmospheric heating, electrical currents, and auroral displays over the polar regions. The proposed facility will consist of a high-performance compute engine, data storage, and archiving hardware. The goal is to develop a user-friendly facility freely available to senior scientists, postdocs, and graduates students within the participating research groups. The facility will enhance efforts to simulate and model the solar terrestrial environment, facility the analysis of large volume data sets from multiple experimental programs, and aid the characterization of existing and developing instrumentation by providing a platform for generating instrument simulations with high statistics.