Department of the Automation for Scientific Research (ASR)
was founded in 1988 on the basis of research and teaching group of the
Mathematical Physics Department (former Department of Computational
Mathematics).
The founder and permanent head of the ASR Department
is Russian Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member
Dmitry P. Kostomarov.
Under his guidance the department performs wide spectrum of research
in the field of computer simulation of complex systems and processes.
Nowadays a considerable attention is absorbed to the study of superintense femtosecond laser pulse interaction with a matter. These processes are of a great interest for both basic research and numerous applications. The development of compact laser driven accelerators to promote hadronic therapy for oncological diseases is among the most interesting and important ones. The work on a such accelerator is impossible without a detailed full-scale computer simulation of laser pulses interaction with media. The only possible approach consists in the creation of virtual computer environment encompassing tens and hundreds billion particles. It is crucial to exploit supercomputers in order to obtain realistic results in a reasonable time.
Computer simulation via particles is widely applicable when engineering
next-generation mass spectrometers capable of high precision mass
measurement of biological macromolecules.
The problem is particularly significant for proteomics and investigation of
proteins structure, that is among the most important points
in the design of drugs active on a cellular level.
Besides, in the framework of this project a peptide identification code
have been developed at the department that is better able to assign
aminoacid sequences then popular protein search engine software products.
The distinctive feature of these problems is the necessity for
the up-to-date parallel programming techniques.
Last years the department puts the substantial accent to the works on
computer simulation of nanostructure materials and corresponding
nanotechnologies.
The quantum models and quantum-mechanical molecular dynamics and Monte
Carlo computer codes are developed for modelling semi-conductor
heterostructures and electronic molecular composition.
Presently the problem of thermonuclear energetics and controlled nuclear fusion is in
the centre of attention in Russian Federation and other developed
countries.
The department researchers were at the cradle of computational plasma
physics and have gained a great experience in solving multidimensional
nonlinear problems for high-temperature plasma physics.
A noticeable series of works is related to the projection of steady operation modes for international tokamak-reactor ITER. The problem consists in the investigation of toroidal plasma column stability using three-dimensional nonlinear magnetohydrodynamical model.
The magnetic field reconnection phenomenon plays an important role in this field. The effect constitutes a basic physical process appearing itself in solar flares, ionospheric storms, cosmic rays acceleration as a result of thin domain with super-high electric current formation, the so called current sheets. Computer simulation of reconnection phenomenon process requires mastering all the range of modern computational mathematics, computer graphics and parallel programming methods. The unique 3D codes were developed at the department, allowing minute analysis of the phenomenon.
The studies of the department professors and researchers, Ph.D. and undergraduate students are supported by numerous grants of Russian Federation President, Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and some transnational enterprises. The results are presented at the premier international conferences. The top-level computational physics studies are performed in collaboration with leading Russian scietific centres (Kurchatov Institute for Atomic Energy, Prokhorov General Physics Institute RAS, Institute for Energy Problems of Chemical Physics RAS) and lots of foreign universities and scientific institutions (University of Pisa, Italy; Advanced Photon Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency; Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Netherlands; Purdue University, USA).