Visualizing high-resolution accelerator physics

Abstract

Particle accelerators play an increasingly important role in basic and applied science. Several countries are involved in efforts aimed at developing accelerator-related technologies to support different application domains, including high-energy and nuclear physics, material science, biological science, and military use. The technological challenges associated with designing the next generation of accelerators will require numerical modeling capabilities far beyond those normally used within the accelerator community. In 1997 the US Department of Energy initiated a Grand Challenge in Computational Accelerator Physics, primarily to develop a new generation of high-performance accelerator modeling tools and apply them to projects of national importance. These tools will have a major impact on reducing the cost and technical risk of future projects, as well as maximizing the performance of present and future accelerators. In addition, they will enable the simulation of problems three to four orders of magnitude larger than ever done before. The use of algorithms and software optimized for high-performance computing will make it possible to obtain results quickly and with very high accuracy. This work is being done in collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Stanford University, and the University of California at Los Angeles. This article focuses on the accelerator simulation model and the current techniques used to visualize the project results.