NSF Org:	OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC)
Recipient:	CINCINNATI UNIV OF
Initial Amendment Date:	August 14, 2018
Latest Amendment Date:	August 14, 2018
Award Number:	1835536
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Bogdan Mihaila bmihaila@nsf.gov  (703)292-8235 OAC  Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CSE  Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date:	September 1, 2018
End Date:	August 31, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$39,005.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$39,005.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2018 = $39,005.00
History of Investigator:	Colin Bischoff (Principal Investigator) colin.bischoff@uc.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	University of Cincinnati Main Campus 2600 CLIFTON AVE CINCINNATI OH  US  45220-2872 (513)556-4358
Sponsor Congressional District:	01
Primary Place of Performance:	University of Cincinnati Main Campus 2600 Clifton Ave Cincinnati OH  US  45220-2872
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	01
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	DZ4YCZ3QSPR5
Parent UEI:	DZ4YCZ3QSPR5
NSF Program(s):	OFFICE OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY AC, Software Institutes
Primary Program Source:	01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):	026Z, 077Z, 1206, 7569, 7923, 8004
Program Element Code(s):	125300, 800400
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.070

ABSTRACT

The photons created in the Big Bang have experienced the entire history of the Universe, and every step in the evolution of the Universe has left its mark on their statistical properties. Observations of these photons have the potential to unlock the secrets of fundamental physics and cosmology, and to provide key insights into the formation and evolution of cosmic structures such as galaxies and galaxy clusters. Since the traces of these processes are so faint, one must gather enormous datasets to be able to detect them above the unavoidable instrumental and environmental noise. This in turn means that one must be able to use the most powerful computing resources available to be able to process the volume of data. These computing resources include both highly localized supercomputers and widely distributed grid and cloud systems. The PI and Co-Is will develop a common computing infrastructure able to take advantage of both types of resource, and demonstrate its suitability for ongoing and planned experiments by adapting the analysis pipelines of four leading Big Bang observatories to run within it. In addition to enabling the full scientific exploitation of these extraordinarily rich data sets, the investigators will mentor students engaged in this research and run summer schools in applied supercomputing.

This project seeks to enable the detection of the faintest signals in Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, and in particular the pattern of peaks and troughs in the angular power spectra of its polarization field. In order to obtain these spectra one must first reduce the raw observations to maps of the sky in a way the preserve the correlations in the signal and characterizes the correlation in the noise. While the algorithms to perform this reduction are well-understood, applying them to data sets with quadrillions to quintillions of observations is a very serious computational challenge. The computational resources available to the project to address this include both high performance and high throughput computing systems, and one will need to take advantage of both of them. This project will develop a joint high performance/high throughput computational framework, and deploy within it analysis pipelines currently being fielded by the ongoing Atacama Cosmology Telescope, BICEP/Keck Array, POLARBEAR, and South Pole Telescope experiments. By doing so one will also demonstrate the frameworks efficacy for the planned Simons Observatory and CMB-S4 experiments.

This project is supported by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering and the Division of Astronomical Sciences in the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Precision measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) are a pillar of modern cosmology. Future telescopes will map out matter throughout the universe, search for new types of astrophysical transients, search for new fundamental particles, and probe physics near the time of the Big Bang. Improvements in detector technology and mass production will enable more sensitive measurements, but these next-generation CMB telescopes will generate exponentially larger data volumes than past or current generations. To handle this flood of data, it is critical to be able to deploy CMB mapmaking pipelines on cutting edge computer clusters, both tightly-coupled high performance systems (HPC) and parallel-but-distributed high throughput systems (HTC). The primary outcome of this project was to unify the TOAST mapmaking pipeline, designed for HPC, with the SPT3g pipeline, designed for HTC. This unification was achieved through the development of common experiment definitions and data interchange formats.

We demonstrated the improved pipelines by applying it to data from Stage-3 CMB experiments that include both large and small aperture telescopes operating in Chile and at the South Pole. While the BICEP experiment does not use either TOAST or SPT3g as its mapmaking pipeline, the exchange of data and analysis techniques with BICEP resulted in important contributions to this project. Data from the BICEP3 and Keck Array telescopes were processed by the TOAST pipeline and used to help constrain physical models of the South Pole atmosphere. Analysis techniques developed by BICEP were added to TOAST, enabling the calculation of an "observing matrix" that can be used for rapid generation of simulations and for the calculation of optimal filters.

Community outreach, in the form of a series of workshops, helped train dozens of graduate students, postdocs, and senior researchers in the use of the TOAST pipeline software.

Last Modified: 02/03/2023
Modified by: Colin A Bischoff

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