Tampa, Fla. --- Ed Seidel, director of the LSU Center for Computation and Technology, received one of the highest honors in computational science at the annual Supercomputing Conference in Tampa, Fla. on Nov. 15.
Seidel received the Sidney Fernbach Award, an international honor from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that recognizes career achievements in using high-performance computer technology to solve problems in other academic fields, such as physics and mathematics. Seidel received his award and gave a keynote address on his research at the conference. He was specifically awarded for his work to develop high-performance computing software to solve Albert Einstein's numerical relativity equations, which was the subject of his speech.
The last major theory of Einstein's that has yet to be proven correct is the presence of gravitational waves. Since the waves are hard to detect, scientists try to observe them by watching large, mass objects interact. Seidel and CCT researchers have worked to prove the existence of these waves by observing black hole collisions. In his speech, Seidel noted the primary limitations in detecting gravitational waves up until now have been a lack in the technology needed to measure the waves and a lack of a successful model to help scientists recognize the delicate signatures of gravitational waves.
The technology needed to detect these sensitive waves is available through the National Science Foundation's Laser Inferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) Project. There are two LIGO detectors for measuring gravitational waves in the United States. One is in Washington and one is in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. The nearby LIGO detector in Livingston Parish, close to Baton Rouge and the LSU campus, has allowed researchers to address limitations that up until now have caused gravitational waves to go undetected.
As for the need for a successful model to detect and trace the waves, Seidel and a team of CCT researchers have developed software to track black hole collisions as a testing ground for observing and recording gravitational waves, using groundbreaking techniques and the technology available at CCT.
In his speech, Seidel discussed how developing this software has advanced breakthroughs in grid computing and high-performance computing for other academic disciplines with similar complex challenges. Using the high-performance software that Seidel and the CCT researchers developed to model black hole collisions will enable researchers to make predictions on what gravitational waves would look like, and the supercomputing technology at CCT allows teams of researchers from different fields to work together at mapping the collisions.
Offering scientists a model for understanding what gravitational waves from black hole collisions look like will ultimately lead to breakthroughs in physics and astronomy, Seidel said.
For an update on this and other CCT research currently underway, please visit www.cct.lsu.edu.
Publish Date:
11-15-2006
