What requires 80 computers, a total of 320 CPU’s of power, 640 GB of RAM and 96 terabytes of hard drive space? No, it isn’t a joke, but rather the specifications for Syracuse University's Department of Physics new supercomputer, SUGAR (SU Gravitational and Relativity Cluster).
SUGAR is, if nothing else, a catchy name (how do those scientists always manage it?), but more than that it is out to detect the sound of black holes. Using information collected by California Institute of Technology’s (Caltech) Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) over a two-year period, SUGAR will hopefully soon be able to provide scientists with a new way to detect black holes.
Invisible to normal telescopic detection because they eat the light around them, black holes have hitherto been detected through the gravitational effects it causes on those celestial bodies around them. According to Stephen Hawking, it is "a bit like looking for a black cat in a coal cellar.”
Gravitational waves like those being sought by LIGO, are produced thanks to interstellar collisions, explosions, etc. Radiating out across the universe at the speed of light, these waves were first predicted by Albert Einstein back in 1916. Predicted in his General Theory of Relativity, it has taken decades for humans to finally be able to search specifically for these waves.
Construction of the LIGO detectors took place in Hanford, Wash., and Livingston, La., and was finally completed back in 2005. Next came the standard two-year “science run” of the detectors, which are now searching for the existence of these waves. LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) scientists will analyze the data while the sensitivity of the detectors is continually improved.
But before the existence of black holes can be listened for, one must first know just what to listen for!
Together with Einstein’s theories, and working with colleagues from the Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) project, Duncan Brown, assistant professor of physics and member of SU's Gravitational Wave Group and the man building SUGAR, will create models of gravitational wave patterns from the collision of two black holes.
"Looking for gravitational waves is like listening to the universe," Brown says. "Different kinds of events produce different wave patterns. We want to try to extract a wave pattern -- a special sound -- that matches our model from all of the noise in the LIGO data."
But when dealing with this amount of data, storage is not the only issue; especially when you are dealing with locations on opposite sides of the country. Together NYSERNet, SU’S Information Technology and Services (ITS) built a special pathway across the American high-speed fiber optic network. The teams believe that both the supercomputer and the high-speed network will be up and running by the end of February, and allow all involved to begin listening in to the "cosmic symphony." "Gravitational waves can teach us much about what is out there in the universe," Brown says. "We've never looked at Einstein's theory in this way."
Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.
