The programs of the Office of Energy Research fund basic research in order to advance the fundamental science knowledge base, as well as train future scientists. Research of this type has been supported by the Department of Energy and its predecessors for over 40 years and includes research in the natural and physical sciences; including basic energy sciences (research in materials and chemical sciences, engineering and geosciences, and energy biosciences), magnetic fusion energy, health and environmental research, high energy and nuclear physics, computational and technology research in mathematical, informational, and computational sciences. These research programs build the science and technology base for our Nation's energy security and scientific leadership.
Access to a broad variety of facilities and laboratories is essential to success in our research efforts. The facilities include large accelerators, experimental detectors, and reactors, high-precision instruments, synchrotrons, massively parallel computers, high-capacity networks, and high-resolution microscopes. These facilities are used by a broad base of user groups from universities and industries all over the country and abroad.
The knowledge, techniques, and instruments developed in the diverse programs of the Office of Energy Research contribute to U.S. economic and national defense security, and are used in therapeutic and diagnostic medical applications, electricity generation, and an array of applications in industry and other scientific areas.
Among the major facilities available to Energy Research scientists are the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) facility and the High Performance Computing Research Centers sited at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The High Performance Computing Research Centers were established to provide state-of-the-art resources for Grand Challenge computing. NERSC also provides significant resources to the Grand Challenge effort but NERSC is also the principal supplier of production high-performance computing and networking services to the nationwide energy research community.
In the following sections we describe representative research programs that utilize the computational resources available within the ER system. The focus is on research done at the NERSC facility and the material included here is only a small fraction of the high quality science enabled by the facility.