The Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation (CCRG) is a research center at the Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester Institute of Technology

The Rochester Institute of Technology is a private university, located within the town of Henrietta in metropolitan Rochester, New York, United States...

. It comprises faculty, postdoctoral research associates and students working in the areas of computational general relativity

General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

, gravitational wave

Gravitational wave

In physics, gravitational waves are theoretical ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagates as a wave, traveling outward from the source. Predicted to exist by Albert Einstein in 1916 on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves theoretically transport energy as...

s, relativistic astrophysics, and galaxy

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...

 dynamics

Dynamics (mechanics)

In the field of physics, the study of the causes of motion and changes in motion is dynamics. In other words the study of forces and why objects are in motion. Dynamics includes the study of the effect of torques on motion...

. It was founded in 2007 within the School of Mathematical Sciences then headed by Sophia Maggelakis.
Faculty members currently include Hans-Peter Bischof, Joshua Faber, Manuela Campanelli (Director), Carlos Lousto, David Merritt

David Merritt

David Merritt is an American astrophysicist and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. He received his PhD in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University and held postdoctoral positions at the University of California, Berkeley and the Canadian Institute...

, John Whelan and Yosef Zlochower.

Computing facilities in the CCRG include gravitySimulator

GravitySimulator

gravitySimulator is a novel supercomputer that incorporates special-purpose GRAPE hardware to solve the gravitational N-body problem. It is housed in the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation at the Rochester Institute of Technology...

, a 32-node computer that uses special-purpose GRAPE

Gravity Pipe

Gravity Pipe, otherwise known as GRAPE, is a project which uses hardware acceleration to perform gravitational computations. Integrated with Beowulf-style commodity computers, the GRAPE system calculates the force of gravity that a given mass, such as a star, exerts on others...

 hardware to achieve speeds of 4Tflops in gravitational N-body calculations

N-body problem

The n-body problem is the problem of predicting the motion of a group of celestial objects that interact with each other gravitationally. Solving this problem has been motivated by the need to understand the motion of the Sun, planets and the visible stars...

; and NewHorizons, a 104-node Linux cluster with dual-processor (dual-core) per node and a total of 1.4 Tbytes of on-board memory.

The mission of the CCRG is "to promote excellence in research and education, and to advance discovery beyond the frontiers of current knowledge in key research areas of computational astrophysics, gravitational physics, high-performance computing and scientific visualization."