To understand how the universe formed, astronomers have created AbacusSummit, more than 160 simulations of how gravity may have shaped the distribution of dark matter.

Collectively clocking in at nearly 60 trillion particles, a newly released set of cosmological simulations is by far the biggest ever produced.

Made up of more than 160 simulations, it models how particles in the universe move about due to their gravitational attraction.

Such models, known as N-body simulations, capture the behavior of the dark matter, a mysterious and invisible force that makes up 27 percent of the universe and interacts only via gravity.

The AbacusSummit suite comprises hundreds of simulations of how gravity shaped the distribution of dark matter throughout the universe.

“This suite is so big that it probably has more particles than all the other N-body simulations that have ever been run combined — though that’s a hard statement to be certain of,” says Lehman Garrison, lead author of one of the new papers and a CCA research fellow.

Garrison led the development of the AbacusSummit simulations along with graduate student Nina Maksimova and professor of astronomy Daniel Eisenstein, both of the Center for Astrophysics.

Scientists will make those improved estimations by comparing the new observations to computer simulations of the universe with different values for the various parameters — such as the nature of the dark energy pulling the universe apart.

Abacus leverages parallel computer processing to drastically speed up its calculations of how particles move about due to their gravitational attraction.

N-body calculations — which attempt to compute the movements of objects, like planets, interacting gravitationally — have been a foremost challenge in the field of physics since the days of Isaac Newton.

Using that approach, AbacusSummit handled colossal numbers of particles thanks to clever code, a new numerical method and lots of computing power.

The team designed the codebase for AbacusSummit — called Abacus — to take full advantage of Summit’s parallel processing power, whereby multiple calculations can run simultaneously.

Running N-body calculations using parallel processing requires careful algorithm design because an entire simulation requires a substantial amount of memory to store.

Abacus then groups nearby cells and splits them off so that the computer can work on each group independently, combining the approximation of distant particles with precise calculations of nearby particles.

Thanks to its design, Abacus achieved very high speeds, updating 70 million particles per second per node of the Summit supercomputer, while also performing analysis of the simulations as they ran.

take a simulation any simulation 1,200,000,000 light years distance

each square section 240,000,000 x 240,000,000 light years wide

the large scale structure of the universe the dark energy and matter 95% of the universe the giants of the universe

and how the dark matter and energy have expanded and has allowed the material world matter 5% to fall into place into a pattern on the sky but really a 3 dimensional shape in the universe

the dwarfs of the universe 250,000 light years wide galaxies the continents of blue ball planet earth and starlight the islands around the continents of the blue ball planet earth and cosmic dust and cosmic clouds

so to recap a universe 13,700,000,000 light years wide the big picture pic

a simulation 1,200,000,000 light years across the foreground

dark matter bubbles 240,000,000 light years across the shapes

cosmic filaments 50,000,000 light years across the outline the small pic

galaxies 250,000 light years across the bright specks

do we have gaping holes of solid cheese at 240.000.000 light years across

The experimental study of expansion of universe by dark energy(accumulating as matter) through computers applying N-body method for solution is approximate and useful

This study has the firm assumption that Dark Matter is particles affected by gravitation