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Computational Cosmology Center

CMB Simulations at Scale

Using a KNL-optimized version of the TOAST framework running on 600,000 cores of NERSC's Cori-2 supercomputer to simulate and map the sky signal, instrument noise, and atmosphere, observed by 50,000 detectors spread over 7 frequencies, scanning 20% of the sky from the Chajnantor Plateau in Chile for 1 year.

Looking through an example of one 20-minute simulated atmosphere volume, with the wind blowing from top right to bottom left:

atm 10 30 10

Filtered and binned maps of the cumulative sky temperature and polarization at each frequency over 1 year of observing (129 observing days each with a 13-hour constant elevation scan of the ACTpol SS sky patch).

Frequency Temperature (T) Polarization (P)
20 GHz cumulative 020 I cumulative 020 P
30 GHz cumulative 030 I cumulative 030 P
40 GHz cumulative 040 I cumulative 040 P
95 GHz cumulative 095 I cumulative 095 P
150 GHz cumulative 150 I cumulative 150 P
220 GHz cumulative 220 I cumulative 220 P
270 GHz cumulative 270 I cumulative 270 P

About Berkeley Lab

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