Fusion (when light nuclei bind to make heavier nuclei) and fission (when heavy nuclei break apart into lighter ones) are fundamental nuclear processes that have enormous impact on our lives. Fusion is responsible for the heat from the sun, and for the existence of the primordial deuterium and helium that went into the first generation of stars after the Big Bang. More complex fusion and fission processes within stars and supernovae have given rise to the variety of elements found on earth and in the cosmos. Fission has been harnessed for energy production, while controlled fusion remains an elusive goal. Both fission and fusion play a role in nuclear weaponry and national security.
Despite the importance of fission and fusion processes, we have little theoretical understanding of them from first principles due to their complexity: fusion involves the interactions of many quarks within small nuclei, while fission follows from collective dynamics of many nucleons within large nuclei. We propose here to accomplish the first steps toward understanding fission and fusion directly from fundamental quark and nucleon interactions by means of high performance computing. The computer being purchased with MRI funds in this proposal, coupled with the unique expertise of the PIs in relevant aspects of nuclear theory, will enable to the PIs to perform the research and development of computational techniques and algorithms that will enable efficient study of fission and fusion on leadership class computing infrastructure, such as the TeraGrid. Research on this machine will include extensive involvement by post-docs and graduate students, giving them an invaluable hands-on opportunity to learn the techniques of high performance computing, skills they will be able to later apply across all the sciences.
