Experimental rocket observation in the auroral region
The Graduate School of System Informatics and the Educational Center on Computational Science and Engineering of Kobe University will embark on a joint research project with the 4DSpace Strategic Research Initiative of the University of Oslo involving experimental rocket observation in the auroral region. The duration of this joint study is two years, starting in 2015.
In the 4DSpace Strategic Research Initiative, computer simulations are performed for the study of the effects that rockets have on the surrounding plasma environment when measuring the observation area. The subject of this research coincides with that of the research team headed by Prof. USUI Hideyuki and Dr. MIYAKE Yohei (Assistant Professor) of the Graduate School of System Informatics. Prof. USUI and Dr. MIYAKE have long studied the interaction between satellites and the space plasma environment using supercomputers after developing the satellite environment simulator (Electromagnetic Spacecraft Environment Simulator: EMSES). Given their shared interests, the two groups have decided to collaborate on their research using computer simulations.
This project does not merely involve the leaders of the two research groups but will include active participation by students from the Graduate School of System Informatics, the Graduate School of Sciences, and the Graduate School of Engineering in computer simulation exercises and analysis work. Two annual workshops on computer simulation will be held in Kobe and in Oslo. Students from both universities will perform simulations using a supercomputer, "the π-computer," managed by the Education Center on Computational Science and Engineering on the exercise basis. Moreover, both universities plan to send their students and junior faculty on mutual exchange visits under the framework of this joint research project.
This project is expected to help improve the precision of observed data collected from rocket experiments by examining the still unclear interaction between the rocket and its surrounding plasma environment in a quantitative manner. This project will also contribute to the field of space plasma physics by deepening our quantitative understanding of the environment around the rocket in the auroral region.
The π-computer is a super-computer that has the same architecture as the "K computer" installed at AICS in RIKEN.
Theπ-computer is one of the facilities dedicated to collaborative researches in the Education Center on Computational Science and Engineering, which is particularly used for the education of large-scale simulation technology.
The π-computer consists of the following five servers: a calculation server, a login server, a file-sharing server, a control server and a job management server. Ninety-six calculation servers are connected with the six-dimensional mesh/trans-interconnect "Tofu". Total theoretical peak performance of the calculation servers is 20.2TFLOPS and the total memory capacity is 2TBytes.
Provided by Kobe University