Computational Infrastructure for Nuclear Astrophysics (CINA) Java Swing Desktop Client Application
With over 100 software tools and users from 39 countries and 186 institutions throughout the globe, CINA enables anyone to quickly and easily configure, execute, and visualize nova and supernova simulations.
The elements, which make up our bodies and the world around us, are produced in violent stellar explosions. Computational simulations of the element creation processes occurring in these cataclysmic phenomena are complex calculations that track the abundances of thousands of species of subatomic nuclei that are interrelated by ~60,000 thermonuclear reaction rates stored in continually updated databases. Previously, delays of up to a decade were experienced before the latest experimental reaction rates were used in astrophysical simulations. The Computational Infrastructure for Nuclear Astrophysics (CINA), freely available at the website nucastrodata.org, reduces this delay from years to minutes! With over 100 unique software tools developed since 2003, CINA comprises a “lab-to-star” connection. The system enables users the capability to robustly simulate, share, store, analyze and visualize explosive nucleosynthesis events such as novae, X-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae and upload, modify, merge, store and share the complex input data required by these simulations. It is the only cloud computing software system in this field and it is accessible via an easy-to-use, web-deliverable Desktop application. Pandia Software currently maintains and enhances CINA with collaborators from the ORNL Physics Division.