NBodyLab: A Testbed for Undergraduates Utilizing a Web Interface to NEMO and MD-GRAPE2 Hardware
V.P. Johnson, Peter J. Teuben, Bryan Edward Penprase · 2003
Abstract. An N-body simulation testbed called NBodyLab was devel-oped at Pomona College as a teaching tool for undergraduates. The testbed runs under Linux and provides a web interface to selected back-end NEMO modeling and analysis tools, and several integration methods which can optionally use an MD-GRAPE2 supercomputer card in the server to accelerate calculation of particle-particle forces. The testbed provides a framework for using and experimenting with the main com-ponents of N-body simulations: data models and transformations, nu-merical integration of the equations of motion, analysis and visualization products, and acceleration techniques (in this case, special purpose hard-ware). The testbed can be used by students with no knowledge of pro-gramming or Unix, freeing such students and their instructor to spend more time on scientific experimentation. The advanced student can ex-tend the testbed software and/or more quickly transition to the use of more advanced Unix-based toolsets such as NEMO, Starlab and model builders such as GalactICS. Cosmology students at Pomona College used the testbed to study collisions of galaxies with different speeds, masses, densities, collision angles, angular momentum, etc., attempting to simu-late, for example, the Tadpole Galaxy and the Antenna Galaxies. The testbed framework is available as open-source to assist other researchers and educators. Recommendations are made for testbed enhancements.