12 October 2007
http://www.interactions.org
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Source: STFC
Content: Press Release
Date Issued: 12 October 2007
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>From Aliens to Accelerators - @home project comes to the UK
Researchers in the UK are gearing themselves up for an influx of help,
with the move of a successful volunteer computing project to the
University of London. Forty thousand people have already run the LHC@home
program on their home or office computers, to help scientists discover the
secrets of matter. This week, researchers at Queen Mary, University of
London, officially launched the new base for LHC@home, which has moved
from CERN, the European particle physics laboratory in Geneva.
Dr Alex Owen, who runs the project in the UK, explains, "Like its larger
cousin, SETI@home, LHC@home uses the spare computing power on people's
desks. But rather than searching for aliens, LHC@home models the progress
of sub-atomic particles traveling at nearly the speed of light around
Europe's newest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)."
The LHC, currently under construction at CERN, is due to start operation
in 2008.
For the LHC to crash these tiny particles together inside its
cathedral-sized detectors, more than 9000 magnets around its 27km circular
tunnel have to be aligned precisely. LHC@home runs a program that
simulates bunches of protons traveling around the ring up to a million
times, to make sure their orbits are stable and the particles don't hit
the walls. So far, users in more than 100 countries have contributed the
equivalent of about 3000 years' on a single computer to the project. Lyn
Evans, head of the LHC project, says that, "the results from this
initiative are really making a difference, providing us with new insights
into how the LHC will perform".
LHC@home, an international collaboration involving five institutes in
Europe and Canada, is now managed by physicists from the GridPP project in
the UK. Neasan O'Neill works for GridPP and explains, "We started trial
running LHC@home from a computer server in the UK in June, and have spent
the last few months working with the physicists who use the data it
produces. Now, with the official launch of the UK base for the project,
we're ready to fully exploit this fantastic resource."
UK scientists also have plans to use LHC@home for other types of particle
physics computing. Sifting through the 15 million gigabytes of data a year
that will pour out of the LHC to look for telltale signs of new
fundamental particles is beyond the scope of ordinary home computers. This
is why a worldwide computing Grid with dedicated high-speed networks and
huge data storage and processing capacity is needed, and 17 UK
universities and research centres are contributing computing capacity to
this Grid. But other important tasks, like modeling how different parts of
the particle detectors operate, can be distributed to volunteers. In this
way, people around the world can help particle physicists in their search
for signs of the elusive Higgs particle, and contribute to a potentially
Nobel-Prize-winning discovery.
Notes for editors
Images of the LHC and Grid computers are available from
http://www.so.stfc.ac.uk/imagelibrary/
1. LHC@home (http://cern.ch/athome) is a collaboration between CERN, the
Helsinki Institute of Physics, the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen,
Queen Mary University of London and TRIUMF in Vancouver, supported by the
GridPP project.
It distributes an accelerator simulation program called Sixtrack, and
volunteers then download different sets of parameters to simulate
particles circulating in the accelerator under different conditions,
uploading the results every time a simulation is completed. The
accelerator physicists submit a large batch of simulations and then
analyse the results before submitting the next batch, so there can be
periods when there is no 'work' for LHC@home volunteers. However, LHC@home
uses the BOINC platform (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/) , also used by
SETI@home and many other distributed computing projects. When they sign
up, users can opt for their computer to run other projects, such as
modeling climate change or controlling malaria, during gaps in LHC
analysis.
2. GridPP is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council as
part of its e-science programme. A full list of collaborators can be found
at http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/collaboration.html
For more information on GridPP please see http://www.gridpp.ac.uk, or
contact:
Neasan O'Neill
n.oneill@qmul.ac.uk
Tel +44 (0)20-7882-3753
Press Office
Julia Maddock
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Tel +44 1793 442094
Julia.maddock@stfc.ac.uk
Science and Technology Facilities Council
The Science and Technology Facilities Council ensures the UK retains its
leading place on the world stage by delivering world-class science;
accessing and hosting international facilities; developing innovative
technologies; and increasing the socio-economic impact of its research
through effective knowledge exchange partnerships.
The Council has a broad science portfolio including Astronomy, Particle
Physics, Particle Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, Space Science,
Synchrotron Radiation, Neutron Sources and High Power Lasers. In addition
the Council manages and operates three internationally renowned
laboratories:
-The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire
-The Daresbury Laboratory, Cheshire
-The UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh
The Council gives researchers access to world-class facilities and funds
the UK membership of international bodies such as the European Laboratory
for Particle Physics (CERN), the Institute Laue Langevin (ILL), European
Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), the European organisation for
Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) and the European
Space Agency (ESA). It also contributes money for the UK telescopes
overseas on La Palma, Hawaii, Australia and in Chile, and the MERLIN/VLBI
National Facility, which includes the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank
Observatory.
The Council distributes public money from the Government to support
scientific research. Between 2007 and 2008 we will invest approximately
£678 million.
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