TOPS is an integrated software infrastructure center (ISIC) focusing on developing, implementing, and supporting optimal or near optimal schemes for partial differential equation-based simulations and closely related tasks, including optimization of PDE-constrained systems, sensitivity analysis, eigenanalysis, and adaptive time integration, as well as core implicit linear and nonlinear solvers. TOPS is researching and developing and will deploy a toolkit of open source solvers for the nonlinear partial differential equations that arise in many application areas, including fusion, accelerator design, global climate change, and the collapse of supernovae. These algorithms - primarily multilevel methods - aim to reduce computational bottlenecks by one or more orders of magnitude on terascale computers, enabling scientific simulation on a scale heretofore impossible. Along with usability, robustness, and algorithmic efficiency, an important goal of this ISIC is to attain the highest possible computational performance in its implementations by accommodating to the memory bandwidth limitations of hierarchical memory architectures. The philosophy of TOPS is that most PDE simulation is ultimately a part of some larger scientific process that can be hosted by the same data structures and carried out with many of the same optimized kernels as the simulation, itself.

The Terascale Optimal PDE Simulations (TOPS) project is one of three applied mathematics Integrated Software Infrastructure Centers (ISICs) within the SciDAC initiative.

Executive Summary links you to a two-page summary of the TOPS project, plus listing of project PIs

SciDAC National Poster links you to the TOPS poster at the SciDAC National meeting, January 2002 (1.5MB, ppt)

Summary slide links you to a one-slide high-level summary of the TOPS project (3MB)

Overview talk links you to a slide presentation for introducing TOPS to potential scientific collaborators (1.6MB)

DOE Summary links you to the official DOE summary of this project

SC2002 Poster links you to the TOPS poster at SC2002 in Batimore November 2002 (2.0MB, jpg)

TOPS trifold outside links you to the outside of TOPS trifold brochure, November 2002 (0.46MB, pdf)

TOPS trifold inside links you to the inside of TOPS trifold brochure, November 2000 (0.19MB, pdf)