Collaborative effort helps optimize cavities in accelerators
Posted April 16, 2007
Building a particle accelerator is no small undertaking.
These huge closed-loop devices can run for miles underground. Inside, scientists generate beams of some of the smallest particles in the universe, accelerate them to nearly the speed of light, then smash them into each other. Physicists observe these collisions, hoping to unlock secrets of the universe – including what happened in the “Big Bang” that’s believed to have created everything.
The whole works can be thrown off by something as basic as the shape of the cavities that make up the tunnel. That’s why scientists are using powerful computers to simulate accelerator cavity or cell shapes. Simulation lets them test different configurations without the time and expense of actually building them.
The Department of Energy’s Interoperable Technologies for Advanced Petascale Simulations (ITAPS) project has helped one DOE facility – the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center or SLAC – run simulations that doubled the effectiveness of one of its particle smashers, the second generation electron-positron collider, known as PEP-II.
 Two beam pipes of the PEP-II Storage Ring at SLAC; the upper pipe carries positrons, the lower pipe carries electrons. (Photo by Peter Ginter) |
ITAPS is part of the DOE’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. SciDAC sponsors development of the hardware and software supercomputers use to advance DOE’s research programs, including accelerator design. ITAPS is designed to create a “toolbox” of software solutions other researchers can use for DOE projects.
“ITAPS … is a collaborative effort including six DOE laboratories and three universities,” says its head, Lori Diachin of DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “It brings together a large team of experts in this area to start marching toward a common goal.”
