Dawn Shaughnessy
Division leader for Nuclear and Chemical Sciences for the Physical and Life Sciences Principal Directorate
Computing is a core pillar of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s research tools. With continued advances in high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities, including El Capitan, the world’s most powerful supercomputer, and Tuolumne, El Capitan’s unclassified counterpart, Livermore further accelerates its pursuit of solving the world’s biggest problems.
The Laboratory’s Computing Grand Challenge Program, established in 2005, enables researchers across various scientific fields to solve complex problems using Livermore’s supercomputers—problems that would be impossible to address otherwise. From understanding cancer to investigating astrophysics to modeling multibody nuclear interactions, the Computing Grand Challenge enables Livermore’s researchers to execute complex and computationally heavy models and designs on HPC resources. In addition to enabling models and codes that could also be applied to national security needs, the program serves as a training ground for students and postdoctoral researchers who may engage in mission-oriented projects in the future, as well as a pipeline for the researchers and tools of tomorrow.
The feature article in this issue of Science & Technology Review (S&TR) marks the 20-year anniversary of the Computing Grand Challenge Program. The article describes the evolution of the program over its two decades of implementation and reviews three successful Grand Challenge projects: research on stealth dark matter; efforts to investigate seismic wave generation and propagation; and the use of AI and machine learning in cancer research. These projects—and the many others that have been implemented through the Grand Challenge Program—both highlight the advanced capabilities we have today while also showing heightened promise for scientific breakthroughs in the future.
The three highlight articles in this issue feature Livermore’s continued efforts to break down barriers on what was previously thought impossible. The first highlight introduces a collaboration among Livermore; the University of California, Berkeley; and the Air Force Institute of Technology to develop ATHENA (Advanced Technology High-Energy NIF Array), a neutron energy moderator assembly. Leveraging the National Ignition Facility’s (NIF) capabilities to generate neutrons and mimic a thermonuclear environment, ATHENA enables researchers to test microelectronic responses to nuclear explosions, making it a critical tool in Livermore’s stockpile stewardship toolkit.
The issue’s second highlight revisits Livermore’s cosmochemistry work as Laboratory researchers seek to broaden our understanding of the early Solar System. Recent access to pristine asteroid samples collected in space, uncontaminated by passage through Earth’s atmosphere, combined with the use of data science and statistical analysis to find new methods to analyze their research findings, have enabled Livermore scientists to pursue questions on the history of the Solar System, Earth’s formation, and the origin of life.
The final highlight features the Laboratory’s efforts to discover and understand dark matter—specifically weakly interacting massive particles—using liquid xenon and time projection chambers. Livermore has collaborated with many research teams to develop advanced dark matter research efforts and is engaged in the latest endeavors to build a new detector that could help uncover more knowledge of particle physics and a more complete understanding of the universe.
Looking ahead to evolving national priorities, Lawrence Livermore must be ready to pivot to new and exciting areas of research that present themselves, as well as consider how we might best leverage our tools and expertise, such as the Computing Grand Challenge Program and other research programs, to do so. The research featured in this issue of S&TR indicates that we are already on this path and showing no signs of slowing down.
