6533b7d5fe1ef96bd126462e

RESEARCH PRODUCT

LARGE-SCALE SIMULATIONS IN CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS —THE NEED FOR A TERAFLOP COMPUTER

Kurt Binder

subject

Floating pointCondensed matter physicsComputer scienceScale (chemistry)Monte Carlo methodGeneral Physics and AstronomyStatistical and Nonlinear PhysicsParallel computingLarge rangeFLOPSComputer Science ApplicationsMetallic alloyRange (mathematics)Computational Theory and MathematicsMassively parallelMathematical Physics

description

The introduction of vector processors {“supercomputers” with a performance in the range of 109 floating point operations (1 GFLOP) per second} has had an enormous impact on computational condensed matter physics. The possibility of a substantially enhanced performance by massively parallel processors (“teraflop” machines with 1012 floating point operations per second) will allow satisfactory treatment of a large range of important scientific problems which have to a great extent thus far escaped numerical resolution. The present paper describes only a few examples (out of a long list of interesting research problems!) for which the availability of “teraflops” will allow spectacular progress, i.e., the modelling of dense macromolecular systems and metallic alloys by molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations.

https://doi.org/10.1142/s0129183192000373