neutronstars

Tag: event

  • Kick-off meeting in Helsinki

    Kick-off meeting in Helsinki

    NEUTRONSTARS is the first astrophysics-themed Centre of Excellence, with five research groups from the Universities of Helsinki, Turku and Jyväskylä studying neutron stars from all perspectives.

    The kick-off meeting offered a great opportunity for the researchers to meet both old and new colleagues as well as share research results and plans across different aspects of neutron star physics.

    Beyond facilitating introductions among the research group, presenting the themes of the Centre of Excellence and hosting a seminar by one of the participants, the kick-off meeting provided an opportunity to brainstorm and discuss matters related to the legacy and impact of the centre both within and outside the scientific community. 


    The first scientific advisory board meeting of the Centre of Excellence was also held this week. This gave the board members the chance to participate in the kick-off activities, meet members of the Centre of Excellence, and offer their insights into the research directions of the centre.

    Aside from the scientific programme, the participants also enjoyed a dinner together in Restaurant Shelter, with some continuing discussions afterwards amidst a game of pool.

    As the week of kick-off activities drew to a close, plans were already being put in place for the next gathering of the CoE, tentatively scheduled in the Spring period of the following year, this time somewhere much chillier than the sunny Helsinki of early spring. 

    Stay tuned to find out how our research progresses and where we are headed next!

  • High-Performance Computing in Sciences

    High-Performance Computing in Sciences

    This seminar series will focus on computing, numerics, software development, and their applications across scientific disciplines. Our goal is to invite leading experts from both academia and industry to give talks a few times each semester. Seminars are live streamed through Zoom.

    Next seminar

    “Roihu, CSC’s new flagship national supercomputer” by Dr. Yann Pfau-Kempf from CSC

    Friday, April 24 at 13:15-14, 2026
    E204, Physicum, Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2, Helsinki

    Our speaker is Dr. Yann Pfau-Kempf, a former University researcher in space physics, is now an HPC specialist at CSC – IT Center for Science, Ltd.

    Roihu, CSC’s new flagship national supercomputer, is replacing Puhti and Mahti in the upcoming months. Come and hear about its new features and how it will accelerate the science! At the end of the presentation, there will be a possibility to discuss first experiences with the pilot teams.

    Past seminars

    “A collection of tricks to efficiently run massive simulations on HPC machines: The Vlasiator perspective” by Dr. Urs Ganse

    Friday, February 13 at 15:15-16, 2026
    E207, Physicum, Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2, Helsinki

    This time our speaker is Dr. Urs Ganse from the Space Physics research group at University of Helsinki. There he leads the modeling efforts through kinetic simulation of the near-Earth plasma environment. This includes, among other things, development of a 6-dimensional Vlasov theory-based HPC simulation called Vlasiator.

    “C++ Destructors and RAII” by Ville Voutilainen from the Qt Group

    Friday, December 12 at 15:15-16

    Ville Voutilainen is a Principal Software Engineer working at The Qt Company, and has been programming in C++ as a hobby since 1994 and professionally since 1998. He has been a member of the ISO C++ Standards Committee since 2009, and has authored and implemented various standard proposals over the years.

    The talk explains how and why destructors are fundamental and idiomatic, and what RAII is and how and why RAII is also fundamental and idiomatic. The talk covers resource management with the use of destructors and RAII, and also covers cases that are not resource management.

    “State-of-the-Art Communication Software for Supercomputers and Its Applications” by Jeff Hammond from NVIDIA

    Friday, October 31 at 15:15-16
    jeffhammond.github.io

    I will talk about high-performance communication software for GPU supercomputers. I will explain NCCL and NVSHMEM, including their historical context from MPI and SHMEM. The functionality and performance will be demonstrated through an example from linear algebra.  Real world results from both scientific and commercial AI use cases will be described.