SMU’s Institute for Computational Astrophysics: What It Is, and Why It’s Important

Written by Alex Fisher

Thumbnail & Banner Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

If you have any interest in physics, more specifically in astrophysics, then you might know that Saint Mary’s University is famous for being the only university in the Maritimes—in fact, the only university east of Montréal—to offer an astrophysics program. On the program’s future students page, it is even one of the main highlighted points. One thing that many might not know, however, is that Saint Mary’s is also a significant institution in the field of astrophysics research, being home to professors with connections to several state-of-the-art telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the upcoming space-based Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and ultraviolet Research (CASTOR). More than that, however, Saint Mary’s is also home to its own research institute for this specific field: the Institute for Computational Astrophysics.

Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash

Studying astrophysics at Saint Mary’s is already a unique experience, as the small class sizes allow for students to become closely acquainted with their professors, and to get hands-on experience using the Burke-Gaffney Observatory. For students who decide to do research through the Undergraduate Summer Research Awards program, an honours’ thesis, or through any other means of conducting research, they may get the opportunity to work with the Institute for Computational Astrophysics (ICA). Undergraduate students, graduate students, and PhD students alike are all able to have these chances for guidance by the ICA’s faculty, as can be seen on the ICA’s “People” page.

What is the ICA, though? As the name implies, it is a research institute focusing on astrophysics. More specifically, it uses computation methods to model and study cosmic phenomena through analyzing datasets and generating simulations. These datasets—and therefore the events they describe and the simulations they generate—are necessarily quite complex, meaning that the ICA needs access to a lot of computing power; certainly more than Saint Mary’s alone is able to provide.

This is where the ICA’s connection to ACENET comes in. ACENET is a not-for-profit Atlantic Canada supercomputing network specializing in digital research, with official ties to fifteen universities and colleges across the Maritimes. The system powering ACENET is connected through an infrastructure maintained by these universities—Saint Mary’s included—and allows researchers at these universities to connect to this powerful network in order to further their work by giving them access to what is essentially a computer far more powerful than what they would otherwise have access to. This access eventually yields better results, acquired from larger datasets and produced faster than any conventional computer in the Maritimes.

While ACENET is not used exclusively for the ICA, or even for physics research in general, the connection between the research institution and this vast, powerful network grants faculty and students researching astrophysics at Saint Mary’s an incredibly powerful tool to aid them in their work. Its ability to process huge and complicated systems is a boon to anyone interested in globular clusters (large, dense, gravitationally bound collections of stars), galaxy formation, the atmospheres of stars, and more—all topics in which the ICA specializes.

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

Tangible, publicly available research has been produced by the Institute for Computational Astrophysics, as is highlighted on the research institute’s “Publications” page. Following the link on this page to the public server shows that the ICA is connected to more than four hundred publications as of the publishing of this article on a large variety of topics. Such topics range from star formation in early galaxies to studies on active galactic nuclei to modelling nearby globular clusters. And for those familiar with the physics department at Saint Mary’s, it does not take long to spot a number of familiar names listed as authors for the huge number of papers that the ICA has contributed to. Names such as Dr. Ivana Damjanov, who is a Canada Research Chair in Astronomy and Physics and an Assistant Professor at Saint Mary’s, and Dr. Vincent Henault-Brunet, director of the Burke-Gaffney Observatory and an Associate Professor in the astronomy and physics department.

Overall, the Institute for Computational Astrophysics is an important but often overlooked part of Saint Mary’s. Its use of ACENET—which in itself is a fascinating use of technology, connecting computers and servers across Atlantic Canada to create what is essentially a cloud-based supercomputer—allows the ICA to outperform what might otherwise be expected of it, producing valuable, world-renowned research. Possibly the most exciting part of the ICA is that it is not just limited to faculty use; students conducting astrophysics research at any level may have the opportunity to work with the ICA and the powerful network accessible through it. For those currently in the program, or looking to potentially join it, this sort of experience would be a great starting point for their career in the sciences. This only further highlights the importance of the astrophysics program at Saint Mary’s, and stands as one more opportunity unique to students studying here.