High-precision QCD Meets High-performance Computing

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Our understanding of Nature at the smallest scales is encoded in the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, which explains the properties of the elementary particles making up most of known matter in the Universe. Experiments such as those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland are now searching for subtle deviations from SM predictions that would indicate a new theory beyond the SM. This effort requires increasingly intricate and precise calculations in order to determine whether the predictions of the SM are indeed obeyed at the percent-level. The goal of this project is to produce precision simulation programs that can take full advantage of modern parallel computing systems in order to enable the successful pursuit of the program of discovery at the LHC. The graduate student working with the investigator on this project will be well-positioned for a future career at the cutting edge of scientific research and high-performance computing. The goal of this research is to produce parallel versions of several heavily-used numerical programs that incorporate higher-order corrections in the perturbative expansion of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong interactions. Several representative codes written by the PI will be restructured to utilize a hybrid MPI+openMP parallelization scheme. The resulting programs will be scalable to take advantage of the ever-increasing number of nodes available on modern computing platforms. In addition to allowing otherwise intractable phenomenology to be performed, through these codes we will also gain insight into how future QCD calculations can be successfully structured to take full advantage of high-performance computing.