High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) is promoting simulation studies of high energy accelerator science including elementary particle physics and nuclear physics. In order to further accelerate the research, KEK has installed a new supercomputer system and starts its operation on March 1st, 2006.
 
The new supercomputer system consists of Hitachi SR11000 model K1 (peak performance 2.15 TFlops) and IBM Blue Gene Solution (peak performance 57.3 TFlops), which marks largest computing power in Japan at the time of installation.
 
This supercomputer is mainly used for the lattice simulation of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). QCD is the fundamental theory of strong interaction, which is one of four fundamental forces in the nature, and provides the force to bind three quarks to construct proton and neutron. The dominant part, 98%, of the mass of matters in the nature is considered to be generated through this binding process. By simulating QCD in computer, we expect that our understanding of mass generation mechanism and the reactions of proton, neutron, and mesons is greatly developed.
 
This supercomputer system is shared by researchers from Japanese universities and laboratories performing particle and nuclear physics simulations, as other accelerator facilities of KEK.
 
*) TFlops : 10¹² floating point operations per second

Hitachi SR11000 model K1	IBM BlueGene Solution