By: TOP500 Team

For the first time, a research team has harnessed the JUQUEEN supercomputer to find a way to simulate the fusion of heavier elements within stars.

An international collaboration of researchers has developed a new method to simulate the creation of elements inside stars. The process was developed by researchers from the University of Bonn, and University of Bochum, Germany, working with North Carolina State University, Mississippi State University, and the Jülich research center in Germany. The goal of their work was to devise a way to allow simulations of this type to be conducted with less computational power. With this method they were able to model a more complex process that was not previously possible.

A large part of a star’s life is governed by the process of thermonuclear fusion, through which hydrogen atoms are converted into helium at the core of the star. But fusion also creates a host of other elements in the core of the star, produced by the fusion of the nuclei of helium atoms, which are also known as alpha particles.

But when scientists want to observe these processes they come up against a problem: the conditions inside the core of a star (15 million degrees Celsius in the case of our sun) are not reproducible inside a laboratory. Thus, the only way to recreate the processes inside a star is to use ‘ab-initio’ computer simulations.

Read the full article on Science Node.