The Origins of Matter on Near-Exascale Supercomputing
This LDRD addressed one of the central questions in physics today: the lack of antimatter relative to matter in the universe. If antimatter and matter existed in equal amounts they would have annihilated into radiation and we would not exist today. DOE is funding experiments to investigate processes that could lead to lepton number violation and the resulting neutrino-less double beta decay (0nbb) signal that may be observed (lepton number is a property of elementary particles similar to electric charge and lepton number violation would explain the matter-antimatter imbalance). However, even if the 0nbb decay is detected in these experiments, the physics mechanism that violates lepton number would not be known, as there are several candidates. Determining the appropriate mechanism from the experimental data requires theoretical calculations. Theoretical effort in the field has focused on long-range 0nbb decay mechanisms associated with the exchange of light neutrinos between two nucleons. An equally important set of mechanisms are associated with the exchange of heavy particles and short-range physics, including the exchange of massive Majorana neutrinos. Calculating the event rate for 0nbb decays for candidate theories involving heavy particle exchange requires large-scale Lattice simulations of the underlying fundamental theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). We have performed these simulations on the LLNL supercomputers and have calculated the necessary matrix elements of short-range operators that arise from the exchange of heavy mediators that contribute to 0nbb decay via the leading pion exchange diagrams. Our published results can now be used as input to effective field theory calculations to calculate the 0nbb decay rate for the nuclei involved in the various experimental detectors. In the process of this work we entered the 2018 Gordon Bell Prize competition (the highest prize in scientific supercomputing) with our innovative and highly optimized code and methods and were selected as one of the six international finalists. During this effort we helped with the bring-up of the new LLNL Sierra and Lassen supercomputers by identifying hardware and software problems. Aiming towards the next step of this research, involving the sub-leading nucleon-nucleon direct vertex, we have developed algorithms and codes that will play a significant role in future Lattice QCD calculations involving nucleon-nucleon interactions.