The research focuses on two questions important to our understanding of the dynamics of convection on the Sun: 1) Can the pattern of convection on the Sun's surface be attributed to the depth variation of the specific heat of the fluid, as its constituent gases become ionized? 2) How well can the nonlinear dynamics of the observed convection be represented by a smaller model involving interactions of only a few linear eigenmodes? These questions will be addressed by a computer simulation involving code optimization for the parallel/vector environment at the Cornell National Supercomputer Facility; and the construction of a graphical interface for simulation data, which will provide a testing ground for advancing the state of the art in scientific visualization. Special emphasis will be given to: (a) incorporation of next-generation software for interactive data rendering in three dimensions (b) creation of modular, high-level (Unix/C) software tools that could be utilized by other researchers for building interfaces, (c) operation of the interface over a network (with X Windows).
