At the April Meeting, one session touched on computational stellar astrophysics another centered on how to integrate computational physics into undergraduate curricula.ĭCOMP also helps organize smaller meetings. At this year’s March Meeting, DCOMP’s sessions covered topics ranging from quantum simulations to many-body physics. Today, the division is evenly divided between researchers who develop computational methods and those who apply these methods to specific questions in physics.ĭCOMP is one of few APS divisions with a presence at both the atomic, condensed matter, and materials-focused March Meeting and the astrophysics, particle physics, and gravitation-oriented April Meeting. Members joined the new unit in droves, and DCOMP was elevated from topical group to division after only two years, reflecting the rapid adoption of computational approaches in physics research-and the fast evolution of computers. Unsurprisingly, then, DCOMP members “identify as computational physicists as much as they identify a particular specialization of physics,” said Marivi Fernández-Serra, DCOMP secretary/treasurer and a professor of computational condensed matter physics at Stony Brook University.ĭCOMP began as a topical group in 1986, when personal computers had just emerged. Computational astrophysicists, meanwhile, seek to simulate conditions in stars and galaxies that would be impossible to recreate in a laboratory setting. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science are hot topics in the field, where they can be applied to materials design, molecular simulations, and predictions of complex systems. With more than 3,000 members, the Division of Computational Physics (DCOMP) is a hub for researchers who lean on this third pillar.Ĭomputational physics exists “in essentially all subfields of physics,” says DCOMP chair Annabella Selloni, a professor of computational physical chemistry at Princeton University. Without it, many recent achievements-from the detection of the Higgs boson in 2012 to the first observation of gravitational waves in 2016-would have been impossible. Researchers conduct experiments and link their observations to theories, which are confirmed, modified, or overturned by new observations.īut today, some research questions in physics rely on a third, much newer pillar: computation. To learn about this image, click here.įor centuries, the scientific method has stood on two pillars: experimentation and theory. Credit: THESAN Collaboration / Īn extraordinary example of computational physics, THESAN is the most detailed computer model of the first billion years after the Big Bang.
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