Researchers have been able to accelerate fusion energy simulations by up to 50 times while preserving critical physical detail.
A team at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), a major German research facility, have developed a new method to speed up complex simulations of how matter behaves under extreme conditions, reducing the computational demands on supercomputers.
For instance, fusion energy is being researched around the world as a potential source of almost limitless, clean energy. However, before it is anywhere near deployable, researchers need to fully understand what temperatures and pressures are present in such extreme states of matter.
To understand what happens, researchers use X-ray scattering. Essentially, a high-intensity X-ray beam penetrates the sample and the resulting scattering signal is studied to learn about its properties. However, the resulting data is often not enough on its own to determine key characteristics such as density and temperature.
So, in...