NERSC's mission is to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery in the Department of Energy Office of Science (SC) community by providing high-performance computing, information, and communications services. NERSC has a threefold strategy for increasing researchers' productivity:

• Providing leading-edge platforms and services that make NERSC the foremost resource for large-scale computation within DOE.
  
  
• Introducing the best new computer science tools to SC researchers.
  
  
• Providing intellectual services (for example, development of innovative algorithms, simulations, and visualization techniques) that make these complicated technologies useful for computational science.
  
  
  

DIRECTOR'S PERSPECTIVE

YEAR IN REVIEW

NERSC STRATEGIC PLAN

  High-End Systems
  Comprehensive Scientific Support
  Support for Scientific Challenge Teams
  Unified Science Enivronment (USE)
  Collaborations
  Concurrence

SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

  Basic Energy Sciences

• Direct Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Combustion: Compression Ignition, Front Propagation, and Burnout of Hydrocarbon Fuels in Engine Environments
• Numerical Simulations of Interfaces, Grain Boundaries, and Nanocrystals
• Computational Studies in Molecular Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry
• Energetics, Bonding Mechanism and Electronic Structure of Metal/Ceramic Interfaces
• Electronic and Structural Properties of Surfaces and Interfaces
• Electronic Structure and Simulation Calculations of Reactive Chemical Systems
• Fluid and Particulate Transport in Self-Affine Fractures
• Quantum and Classical Simulations of Clusters, Self-Assembly, Nanoscale Manupulations, Nanotribology, and Biological Processes
• Quantum Monte Carlo for Electronic Structure of Combustion Systems
• First-Principles Catalyst Design for Environmentally Benign Energy Production
• Electron-Atom and Electron-Molecule Collision Processes
• Semiclassical Molecular Reaction Dynamics: Methodological Developments and Applications to Complex Systems
• Magnetic Materials: Bridging Basic and Applied Science
• Computational Semiconductor Physics

  
Biological and Environmental Research

• Low Frequency Climate Variability: Natural and Forced Responses 
• Simulating Ocean Carbon Sequestration    
• Computational Studies of Protein Folding and Enzymatic Catalysis of Beta-Lactamases
• Simulations of Global Climate Using a High-Resolution Atmospheric Model 
• Theoretical Study on Catalysis by Protein Enzymes, Ribosome, and Molecular Motors 
• Computational Analysis of Genomic Sequence Data   
• Terascale Spectral Element Climate Dynamical Core  
• Coupled Climate/Carbon Cycle Modeling on Massively Parallel Computers       
• Climate Change Prediction with New Generation Models: Moderate and High Resolution Studies 
• Sources of Variability in Coupled General Circulation Models 

  
Fusion Energy Sciences

• Numerical Tokamak Turbulence Project
• Simulation of Heavy Ion Fusion and Particle Accelerators
• University of Maryland Fusion Energy Research      
• 3DExtended MHD Plasma Simulation with Multiple Levels of Physics       
• 3D Gyrokinetic Particle Simulation of Turbulence and Transport in Fusion Plasmas  
• NIMROD: Extended Magnetohydrodynamic Modeling for Fusion Experiments      
• Plasma Confinement, Stability, Heating and Optimization in Stellarators and Tokamaks
• Equilibrium, Stability, and Transport Studies of Toroidal Magnetic Confinement Systems       
• Lattice Boltzmann Simulations for Plasmas

  
High Energy and Nuclear Physics

• The Nearby Supernova Factory
• Phenomenology with O(a) improved lattice QCD 
• Lattice QCD Monte Carlo Calculation of Hadron Structure
• Core Collapse Supernova Simulations in Multidimensions with Boltzmann Neutrino Transport
• Exploration of Hadron Structure Using Lattice QCD
• Spectrum Synthesis of Supernovae
• STAR Detector Simulations and Data Analysis


• Exact Calculations of Light Nuclei Using Realistic Interactions


• Advanced Computing for 21st Century Accelerator Science and Technology


• Two-Color QCD at Finite Quark-Number Density and Temperature, and QCD at Finite Isospin and Strangeness Densities and Temperatures


• K to and e Calculations with Domain Wall Fermions
  
• High-Temperature QCD with Three Flavors of Improved Kogut-Susskind Quarks

  
Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Other Projects

• The Experimental Mathematician's Toolkit
• Applied Partial Differential Equations   
• A Numerical Study of Acceleration-Driven Fluid Interface Instabilities   
• Global Optimization Approaches to Protein Tertiary Structure Prediction
• High Performance Sparse Matrix Algorithms      
• Mixing Optimization in a Transverse Jet      
• Information Retrieval Algorithms      

APPENDIX A: NERSC Policy Board
APPENDIX B: NERSC Program Advisory Committee
APPENDIX C: NERSC Users Group Executive Committee
APPENDIX D: Supercomputing Allocations Committee
APPENDIX E: Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research
APPENDIX F: Advanced Scientific Computing Advisory Committee
INDEX OF RESEARCHERS