Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Cluster computing”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 109 records · Page 6

Oak Ridge Computing Academy: An HPC cluster deployment and management pilot

The High Performance Computing Technologies (HPCT) course is a hands-on High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster deployment and management training program offered as part of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Master in High Performance Computing (MHPC) specialization. Here, this training program introduces students to key concepts in cluster configuration. which include networking, software stack provisioning, job scheduling, and monitoring. The publicly available course materials feature several examples and underlying methods that are broadly applicable to cluster deployment and management. This paper discusses the design of a new workforce development program at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory that is based on HPCT, the Oak Ridge Computing Academy (ORCA). The ORCA pilot program was hosted by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) in Summer 2025. As a part of this discussion, HPCT and ORCA course contents and infrastructure are outlined, ORCA participant experiences are detailed, and potential opportunities for improvement are discussed.

Education↗

Coupled-cluster techniques for computational chemistry: The CFOUR program package

An up-to-date overview of the CFOUR program system is given. After providing a brief outline of the evolution of the program since its inception in 1989, a comprehensive presentation is given of its well-known capabilities for high-level coupled-cluster theory and its application to molecular properties. Subsequent to this generally well-known background information, much of the remaining content focuses on lesser-known capabilities of CFOUR, most of which have become available to the public only recently or will become available in the near future. Each of these new features is illustrated by a representative example, with additional discussion targeted to educating users as to classes of applications that are now enabled by these capabilities. Lastly, some speculation about future directions is given, and the mode of distribution and support for CFOUR are outlined in the appendix.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Prepare Ground States of Highly Frustrated Magnetic Clusters on Quantum Computers

Solving challenging problems in physical, chemical, and materials sciences is one of the most promising applications of quantum utility that can be realized on current noisy hardware, considering (i) the direct map (encoding) from the quantum particles and their interactions to the qubits and their entangling gates and (ii) the rapidly improved quantum hardware and advanced error-mitigation techniques. Understanding quantum spin liquid in frustrated magnetic materials is a longstanding challenge in condensed matter physics and the nature of the ground-state phases is highly debated among researchers. Using IBM quantum computers with superconducting qubits, we implemented a variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) algorithm to prepare the ground states of two 12-site cluster approximations of these highly frustrated magnetic materials. The interaction graphs of the two corresponding Hamiltonians are (a) the six-pointed star graph (a unit cell of the kagome lattice) and (b) the cuboctahedral graph (the kagome on a sphere). These are also two instances of Quantum Max Cut problem. With the VQE based on the Hamiltonian variational ansatz acting on a valence bond solid initial trial state, we prepared the ground states and obtained the exact ground energy on simulator and high accuracy on noisy hardware. The deep ansatz necessary to reach the ground state of the cuboctahedral graph indicates that it is a hard instance of Quantum Max Cut.

Wang, Yan↗

VC3: Virtual Clusters for Community Computation (Final Technical Report)

A traditional HPC computing facility provides a large amount of computing power but has a fixed environment designed to satisfy local needs. This makes it very challenging for users to deploy complex applications that span multiple sites and require specific application software, scheduling middleware, or sharing policies. This project addressed many of these challenges by making it possible for researchers to easily aggregate and share resources, install custom software environments, and deploy clustering frameworks across multiple HPC facilities through the concept of “virtual clusters”. We designed and implemented a prototype virtual cluster facility that enabled unprivileged users to create dynamic aggregations of computing power across multiple sites, deployed with custom middleware and complex software dependencies.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

VC3: Virtual Clusters for Community Computation

A traditional HPC computing facility provides a large amount of computing power but has a fixed environment designed to satisfy local needs. This makes it very challenging for users to deploy complex applications that span multiple sites and require specific application software, scheduling middleware, or sharing policies. This project addressed many of these challenges by making it possible for researchers to easily aggregate and share resources, install custom software environments, and deploy clustering frameworks across multiple HPC facilities through the concept of “virtual clusters”. We designed and implemented a prototype virtual cluster facility that enabled unprivileged users to create dynamic aggregations of computing power across multiple sites, deployed with custom middleware and complex software dependencies. This service is hosted at the University of Chicago and available through the site virtualclusters.org.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

AGP-based unitary coupled cluster theory for quantum computers

Electronic structure methods typically benefit from symmetry breaking and restoration, specially in the strong correlation regime. Here, the same goes for ansätze on a quantum computer. We develop a unitary coupled cluster method based on the antisymmetrized geminal power (AGP)—a state formally equivalent to the number-projected Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer wavefunction. We demonstrate our method for the single-band Fermi–Hubbard Hamiltonian in one and two dimensions. We also explore post-selection as a state preparation step to obtain correlated AGP and prove that it scales no worse than O(√M) in the number of measurements, thereby making it a less expensive alternative to gauge integration to restore particle number symmetry.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Unexpected Formation of Metallofulleroids from Multicomponent Reactions, with Crystallographic and Computational Studies of the Cluster Motion

Abstract New multicomponent reactions involving an isocyanide, terminal or internal alkynes, and endohedral metallofullerene (EMF) Lu 3 N@C 80 yield metallofulleroids which are characterized by mass‐spectrometry, HPLC, and multiple 1D and 2D NMR techniques. Single crystal studies revealed one ketenimine metallofulleroid has ordered Lu 3 N cluster which is unusual for EMF monoadducts. Computational analysis, based on crystallographic data, confirm that the endohedral cluster motion is controlled by the position of the exohedral organic appendants. Our findings provide a new functionalization reaction for EMFs, and a potential facile approach to freeze the endohedral cluster motion at relatively high temperatures.

Li, Yanbang↗

Unexpected Formation of Metallofulleroids from Multicomponent Reactions, with Crystallographic and Computational Studies of the Cluster Motion

New multicomponent reactions involving an isocyanide, terminal or internal alkynes, and endohedral metallofullerene (EMF) Lu 3 N@C 80 yield metallofulleroids which are characterized by massspectrometry, HPLC, and multiple 1D and 2D NMR techniques. Single crystal studies revealed one ketenimine metallofulleroid has ordered Lu 3 N cluster which is unusual for EMF monoadducts. Computational analysis, based on crystallographic data, confirm that the endohedral cluster motion is controlled by the position of the exohedral organic appendants. Furthermore, our findings provide a new functionalization reaction for EMFs, and a potential facile approach to freeze the endohedral cluster motion at relatively high temperatures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

How Well Can Quantum Embedding Method Predict the Reaction Profiles for Hydrogenation of Small Li Clusters?

Quantum computing leverages the principles of quantum mechanics in novel ways to tackle complex chemistry problems that cannot be accurately addressed using traditional quantum chemistry methods. However, the high computational cost and available number of physical qubits with high fidelity limit its application to small chemical systems. This work employed a quantum-classical framework which features a quantum active space-embedding approach to perform simulations of chemical reactions that require up to 14 qubits. This framework was applied to prototypical example metal hydrogenation reactions: the coupling between hydrogen and Li 2 , Li 3 , and Li 4 clusters. Particular attention was paid to the computation of barriers and reaction energies. The predicted reaction profiles compare well with advanced classical quantum chemistry methods, demonstrating the potential of the quantum embedding algorithm to map out reaction profiles of realistic gas-phase chemical reactions to ascertain qualitative energetic trends. Additionally, the predicted potential energy curves provide a benchmark to compare against both current and future quantum embedding approaches.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Efficient computation of N -point correlation functions in D dimensions

We present efficient algorithms for computing the N-point correlation functions (NPCFs) of random fields in arbitrary D-dimensional homogeneous and isotropic spaces. Such statistics appear throughout the physical sciences and provide a natural tool to describe stochastic processes. Typically, algorithms for computing the NPCF components have $\mathscr O$(n N ) complexity (for a dataset containing n particles); their application is thus computationally infeasible unless N is small. By projecting the statistic onto a suitably defined angular basis, we show that the estimators can be written in a separable form, with complexity $\mathscr O$(n 2 ) or $\mathscr O$(n g log n g ) if evaluated using a Fast Fourier Transform on a grid of size n g . Our decomposition is built upon the D-dimensional hyperspherical harmonics; these form a complete basis on the (D – 1) sphere and are intrinsically related to angular momentum operators. Concatenation of (N – 1) such harmonics gives states of definite combined angular momentum, forming a natural separable basis for the NPCF. As N and D grow, the number of basis components quickly becomes large, providing a practical limitation to this (and all other) approaches: However, the dimensionality is greatly reduced in the presence of symmetries; for example, isotropic correlation functions require only states of zero combined angular momentum. We provide a Julia package implementing our estimators and show how they can be applied to a variety of scenarios within cosmology and fluid dynamics. The efficiency of such estimators will allow higher-order correlators to become a standard tool in the analysis of random fields.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Computing nuclear response functions with time-dependent coupled-cluster theory

We compute nuclear response functions by solving the time-dependent 𝐴-body Schrödinger equation, recording the time-dependent transition moment and extracting spectral information via Fourier transforms. The solution of the time-dependent many-body problem accounts for correlations on top of the mean field by taking advantage of a time-dependent formulation of coupled-cluster theory. As a validation, we focus on electric dipole transitions in 4 He and 16 O and compare moments of the response function distribution to the results of an equivalent static framework, finding negligible discrepancies. We investigate how proton and neutron densities evolve in time, and we see the traditional picture of soft and giant dipole resonances as collective oscillations of protons and neutrons emerging from our calculations in 16 O and 24 O. Furthermore, this method also allows us to investigate the behavior of the nucleus in the presence of a strong electric field. In that regime, the behavior of the system becomes chaotic. Qualitatively, the spectral information obtained in this limit is in line with previous time-dependent mean-field results.

Ab initio calculations↗

Coreset Clustering on Small Quantum Computers

Many quantum algorithms for machine learning require access to classical data in superposition. However, for many natural data sets and algorithms, the overhead required to load the data set in superposition can erase any potential quantum speedup over classical algorithms. Recent work by Harrow introduces a new paradigm in hybrid quantum-classical computing to address this issue, relying on coresets to minimize the data loading overhead of quantum algorithms. We investigated using this paradigm to perform k-means clustering on near-term quantum computers, by casting it as a QAOA optimization instance over a small coreset. We used numerical simulations to compare the performance of this approach to classical k-means clustering. We were able to find data sets with which coresets work well relative to random sampling and where QAOA could potentially outperform standard k-means on a coreset. However, finding data sets where both coresets and QAOA work well—which is necessary for a quantum advantage over k-means on the entire data set—appears to be challenging.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Using Signal Clustering Similarity for Detecting CAN Masquerade Attacks

The computer code assumes that time series representing the physical signals of the vehicle have been extracted from the CAN bus. The main input of the computer code is the multivariate time series representation of the signals in the CAN bus. The computer code cluster these time series using agglomerative hierarchical clustering from benign and attack datasets. Based on this, it generates probability distributions from the similarity of the obtained clusters based in each scenario---benign and attack---using the CluSim method (https://github.com/Hoosier-Clusters/clusim). Finally, it compares how a new data collection compares with the previous distribution to provide and probability score for an intrusion.

Moriano, Pablo↗

Producing two-dimensional dust clouds and clusters using a movable electrode for complex plasma and fundamental physics experiments

We report a Bidirectional Electrode Control Arm Assembly (BECAA) for precisely manipulating dust clouds levitated above the powered electrode in RF plasmas. The reported techniques allow the creation of perfectly 2D dust layers by eliminating off-plane particles by moving the electrode from outside the plasma chamber without altering the plasma conditions. Here, the tilting and moving of electrodes using BECAA also allows the precise and repeatable elimination of dust particles one by one to achieve any desired number of grains N without trial and error. Simultaneously acquired top and side view images of dust clusters show that they are perfectly planar or 2D. A demonstration of clusters with N = 1–28 without changing the plasma conditions is presented to show the utility of BECAA for complex plasma and statistical physics experimental design. Demonstration videos and 3D printable part files are available for easy reproduction and adaptation of this new method to repeatably produce 2D clusters in existing RF plasma chambers.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Mode-multiplexed photonic integrated vector dot-product core from inverse design

Photonic computing has the potential to harness the full degrees of freedom (DOFs) of the light field, including the wavelength, spatial mode, spatial location, phase quadrature, and polarization, to achieve a higher level of computing parallelism and scalability than digital electronic processors. While multiplexing using the wavelength and other DOFs can be readily integrated on silicon photonics platforms with compact footprints, conventional mode-division multiplexed (MDM) photonic designs occupy areas exceeding tens to hundreds of microns for a few spatial modes, significantly limiting their scalability. Here, we utilize inverse design to demonstrate an ultracompact photonic computing core that calculates vector dot products based on MDM coherent mixing. Our dot-product core integrates the functionalities of two-mode multiplexers and one multimode coherent mixer within a nominal footprint of 5 μm x 3 μm . We have experimentally demonstrated computing examples on the fabricated dot-product core, including complex number multiplication and motion estimation using optical flow. The compact dot-product core design enables large-scale on-chip integration in a parallel photonic computing primitive cluster for high-throughput scientific computing and computer vision tasks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Balanced k -means clustering on an adiabatic quantum computer

Adiabatic quantum computers are a promising platform for efficiently solving challenging optimization problems. Therefore, many are interested in using these computers to train computationally expensive machine learning models. We present a quantum approach to solving the balanced k-means clustering training problem on the D-Wave 2000Q adiabatic quantum computer. In order to do this, we formulate the training problem as a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problem. Unlike existing classical algorithms, our QUBO formulation targets the global solution to the balanced k-means model. We test our approach on a number of small problems and observe that despite the theoretical benefits of the QUBO formulation, the clustering solution obtained by a modern quantum computer is usually inferior to the solution obtained by the best classical clustering algorithms. Nevertheless, the solutions provided by the quantum computer do exhibit some promising characteristics. We also perform a scalability study to estimate the run time of our approach on large problems using future quantum hardware. Finally, as a final proof of concept, we used the quantum approach to cluster random subsets of the Iris benchmark data set.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Real‐time XFEL data analysis at SLAC and NERSC: A trial run of nascent exascale experimental data analysis

X‐ray scattering experiments using free electron lasers (XFELs) are a powerful tool to determine the molecular structure and function of unknown samples (such as COVID‐19 viral proteins). XFEL experiments are a challenge to computing in two ways: (i) due to the high cost of running XFELs, a fast turnaround time from data acquisition to data analysis is essential to make informed decisions on experimental protocols; (ii) data‐collection rates are growing exponentially, requiring new scalable algorithms. Here we report our experiences analyzing data from two experiments at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) during September 2020. Raw data were analyzed on NERSC's Cori XC40 system, using the Superfacility paradigm: our workflow automatically moves raw data between LCLS and NERSC, where it is analyzed using the software package CCTBX. We achieved real time data analysis with a turnaround time from data acquisition to full molecular reconstruction in as little as 10 min—sufficient time for the experiment's operators to make informed decisions. By hosting the data analysis on Cori, and by automating LCLS‐NERSC interoperability, we achieved a data analysis rate which matches the data acquisition rate. Completing data analysis within 10 min is a first for XFEL experiments and an important milestone if we are to keep up with data‐collection trends.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗