"I can say - unequivocally - that the most important part of the project was made possible by the WestGrid computing and networking infrastructure", Dr. Thacker stated. "Due to high bandwidth requirements, our simulation code runs most efficiently on shared memory computers, and the large scale SMPs provided by WestGrid enabled us to scale up our simulation to a scientifically interesting size. We simply couldn't have run our largest simulation at any other facility in Canada."

Dr. Thacker's group, which is spread throughout Ontario and the United States, examined the role of black holes in the evolution of galaxies. The project, called Black Holes and Cosmic Evolution, simulated the last six billion years of cosmic history and derived its results from the simulation.

"Once the simulation was complete, remote visualization of our data was made possible by the high bandwidth network within WestGrid, and its subsequent connection to CAnet 4", stated Dr. Thacker. "I tried a similar remote visualization project seven years ago and it was impossible to use. The new networks make it not only possible, but an efficient way to work."

The galaxy simulation is one of the largest of its kind, and data from the simulation is still being analysed at Queen's University, where it is archived. Dr. Thacker's research partners were Hugh Couchman, scientific director of SHARCNET, and Evan Scannapieco of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The scientists made movies of the simulation remotely, which helped them draw their conclusions.