Physics professors awarded NSF grant for new supercomputer

October 23, 2009

Physics professors Emory F. "Ted" Bunn and Jerry Gilfoyle have been awarded a $161,912 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will fund the acquisition of a new supercomputing cluster, which both professors will use in the classroom and in the lab with their undergraduate research students.

Bunn plans to use the technology to simulate new telescopes that are being designed for the observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and Gilfoyle plans to use it for simulation and analysis of nuclear physics data.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 helped make this three-year grant possible. This computer is a technology pathfinder for a planned future satellite-borne telescope, with the ultimate goal of detecting the signature of gravitational waves produced by inflation in the very early Universe.

Posted September 10, 2009

Article ID: 266