FCT's advanced computing services enable challenges to classical laws of statistical physics

Researchers Luís Oliveira e Silva, Thales Silva, and Pablo Bilbao (PhD student) from the Institute of Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion, a research unit at the Instituto Superior Técnico, have discovered previously unknown properties in plasmas, which travel at almost the speed of light when exposed to ultra-intense magnetic fields. The discovery, published in the scientific journal Science Advances, may help explain the origin of radio emissions observed in neutron stars.

For this discovery, which challenges the classical laws of statistical physics, the researchers used advanced computing services made available to the scientific community by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through its digital services unit, FCCN.

The ability to perform demanding numerical simulations and process large volumes of data with high performance, tasks currently made possible by the Deucalion Supercomputer, proved essential to the success of this research. The research team emphasizes the crucial importance of these resources in achieving the results.

"The reported discovery explores the nonlinear behavior of plasma, and it is only possible to unequivocally demonstrate the theoretical prediction with large-scale numerical simulations," explains Luís Oliveira e Silva, project coordinator. “Without these simulations, the discovery could not be confirmed. In our work, the simulations are authentic numerical experiments, and without the Advanced Computing resources of the FCT, these numerical experiments could not be carried out,” he adds.

Pablo Bilbao, a researcher on the team, also highlights the limitations they would face without access to advanced computing: "Without FCT's advanced computing resources, we would only have been able to study the beginning of the process, where theory can still predict what happens. But it was thanks to large-scale simulations that we were able to go much further—and it was during this journey that the new phenomenon eventually emerged. Without that access, this discovery simply would not have been possible.”

In addition to the computational resources themselves, the team also highlights the effective collaboration with FCCN's technical services: "We would like to express our deep gratitude to the FCCN team, in particular to the Advanced Computing Services and Deucalion, for the resources they made available to us and for the technical and administrative support they provided throughout the project. This support was essential for us to maximize the use of the resources made available," says Thales Silva.

Luís Oliveira e Silva also emphasizes the importance of advanced computing for the competitiveness of national research: "In our work, numerical simulations are central, constituting the scientific tool for testing our ideas and theories. Without the advanced computing resources of the FCT, we would not be able to carry out internationally competitive work. And with appropriate and closer technical support, the work is significantly accelerated. It allows us to be at the forefront of research in astrophysical plasmas, competing with the best groups in the world in this area."

Deucalion is part of the European supercomputer network of the EuroHPC joint undertaking, accessible to research and innovation communities. It is a joint project of the FCT, developed through the FCCN and the European EuroHPC partnership, funded by Investment RE-C05-i08 "Ciência Mais Digital" ( More Digital Science ) of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). This supercomputer is capable of achieving a high-performance Linpack (HPL) performance of 9.8 petaflops.

Image caption: In these scenarios, electrons are organized in a ring, in what physicists call momentum space—a way of visualizing the velocities of particles rather than their position. The ring indicates that all electrons share almost the same energy, a special condition that occurs in magnetized plasmas and can trigger the instability that gives rise to bursts of coherent radio waves. Credit: Pablo Bilbao, GoLP/IPFN/IST