Accomplishments

During this quarter usage of the machines has substantially increased: our graduate students often can't find a machine during the afternoons. The sense of energy and productivity in the computer rooms is also as high as it has been for years.

The research being done on the machines spans from electronic structure on a variety of technologically and scientifically interesting electronic systems, to reconstructing the positions of the atoms in protein crystals and quasicrystals with a fascinating new algorithm, to multiscale modeling of defects in materials. Our investment in using the NT environment is poising us well to make effective use of the new NT cluster at the Theory Center, announced last week and to be installed in the next month or two.

Next Quarter Plans

In the next quarter, we expect to install three new machines (one targeted for our new faculty member, Piet Brouwer), to install the software tools needed to connect effectively to the Theory Center's NT cluster, and to develop the Digital Material environment for materials research both on Linux and NT.

Contacts

James P. Sethna, Professor, Department of Physics
Ralph B. Robinson, Programmer Analyst, Physics Department

Equipment Utilization

The workstations are in heavy use, both as computational engines and as places to do one's work. The new Theory Center machines should relieve some of the computational load next quarter.

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