I will be implementing algorithms on nVidia graphic cards using CUDA for use at CERN. Its a collaboration project between my school, the university of Bergen and a university in Germany (presumably Heidelberg). While a lot of the specifics are still up in the air, it will most likely be for the High Level Trigger system for the ALICE sensor.

ALICE is the sensor system which will be used for studying the biggest particle collisions at CERN when their new particle accelerator gets up and running again this fall and throughout next year. They will be colliding lead nucleus in order to recreate the conditions that existed under 1 billionth of a second after the Big Bang.  In these experiments one hopes to find out more about quark-gluon plasma.

Needless to say this is a really exiting project for me. Not a lot of people are so lucky and get to work on such a grand thing for their senior project.  I expect plenty of good technical challenges. And who knows, maybe there is even an opportunity for more than a senior project here?

First up is an introductory course in Bergen on the 5th-7th of October to get up to speed and a concrete assignment. I also hope to get some exploratory coding with CUDA before that time.