About the Images

Cut-away view of plasma turbulence in a tokamak. This image was produced at the National Energy Research Scientific Supercomputer Center as part of a program focused on developing the most advanced computational models of tokamak physics using the most powerful high-performance computing and communications environments in a multinational multidisciplinary collaboration.

Multifluid adaptive mesh refinement simulation of the NOVA hypersonic jet experiments conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Efficient high resolution finite difference methods and adaptive mesh refinement techniques, coupled with modern supercomputer architectures and networks, allow detailed studies of experimental flows where only indirect visualization is possible.

Video image of energy concentrated in plasma in the diverter region of the DIII-D tokamak at General Atomics Inc. To speed up image processing time for the analysis shown in the insert, the calculation was distributed via ESnet to a network cluster of 44 workstations located at the National Energy Research Scientific Supercomputing Center, General Atomics, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

General circulation models or global climate models describe the circulation and thermodynamics of the atmosphere and oceans. The ability to access and use massively parallel computers and set up workstation clusters, combined with improved simulation approaches, have greatly enhanced scientists' ability to model and understand complex climatic phenomena.

Conceptual drawing of the ATLAS detector under construction for the Large Hadron Collider at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). The primary purpose of the detector will be studies of the origin of mass at the electro-weak scale; therefore, the detector has been designed for sensitivity to the largest possible Higgs mass range. The detector will also be used for studies of top quark decays and for supersymmetry searches.

Depiction of the electrostatic potential for cesium bound to an 18-crown-6 molecule. Crown ethers are a class of molecules being considered for separating high-level nuclear wastes at Department of Energy sites. Accurate modeling calculations on molecules as large as crown ethers require upercomputer class machines and high-speed networks.