News archive Universe@Home

Universe@Home is ending... :(
My dear friends,

For over 10 years, I have taken care of the Universe@Home project.

Unfortunately, since the passing of Prof. Krzysztof Belczynski, we have not been able to find a way to continue the project. Therefore, as funding ended at the end of August this year, I am no longer formally associated with the project. Still hoping that a scientific team will be found to carry it forward, I have continued to handle the ongoing maintenance of the server, and I intend to keep doing so in my free time until either a successor to Krzysztof is found or CAMK decides to shut down the servers.

I truly regret that such a long history of our shared work is coming to an end. Unfortunately, I lack the scientific expertise needed to continue the research myself.

I would like to thank all of you for years of support and express my hope that we may someday meet again on another project that I could manage from the BOINC side.
11 Nov 2024, 15:52:47 UTC · Discuss

Shutdown on 19 July (Friday afternoon)
Dear All,

This email is to inform you of a planned power and network outage in the whole CAMK building scheduled for Friday, July 19th, after 4 pm (CET). The outage is necessary to connect photovoltaic component to our power circuits.

We plan to minimize the downtime, but we cannot make any promises. We were told that all critical works should be finalized on the same day, unfortunately, it may take twice the time that our UPS can support.
18 Jul 2024, 14:58:40 UTC · Discuss

Planned power maintenance outgage
We have a planned network outage in the CAMK building scheduled for Saturday, March 23rd, 2024.
The outgage start on 7pm CET and finish on Monday, 25th, 8am.
22 Mar 2024, 13:05:15 UTC · Discuss

Universe@Home future
The time has come to inform you about what will happen next with the Universe@Home project.

As you know, Krzysztof Belczyński was the initiator and lead scientist of the project - he was the head of our small team. His sudden passing caused a bit of chaos, which we are gradually trying to manage. Unfortunately, the latest changes in the application code that were being implemented also disappeared with him. For this reason, as well as the necessity to introduce changes to the application code that had been planned for some time, we have decided to temporarily suspend the generation of new WUs.

As of today, we already know that Universe@Home will not end - it is being taken under the wing of Prof. Tomasz Bulik (https://nauka-polska.pl/#/profile/scientist?id=23855&lang=en&_k=ta6rhj). Nevertheless, we must ask for your patience; at this moment, the most important thing is to manage the organizational and formal matters and to work on the changes in the code. This should take us two to three months.

I will keep you updated.
26 Jan 2024, 18:40:08 UTC · Discuss

For memory of Krzysztof Belczyński

I met Krzysztof in the summer of 2014. It was then that Grzegorz Wiktorowicz found me and invited me to collaborate on a new scientific project. The reason they found me on the Internet was a problem with accessing the necessary computing power needed for the scientific research of these two scientists.
Soon after, the test server for the Universe@Home project was created - some of you may still remember it.

As soon as it turned out that the idea of using BOINC was a bullseye, Krzysztof offered me a more permanent collaboration, which I undertook with joy.
Few of us have the opportunity to work with scientists of this caliber.

We worked together for almost 10 years. About a month ago, we were discussing development possibilities, and Krzysztof was telling me about the publications being created based on our joint work (yes, there were supposed to be more than one!).

Unfortunately, today we will no longer be able to implement these plans...

As Krzysztof was a founder of the project, I don’t know yet what will happen next with our project. It's too early for any decisions, but whatever they may be - you will find out immediately. Krzysztof never forgot to mention the help our community provided him, and I am sure that we too will remember his trust in the power of the community...
16 Jan 2024, 16:39:35 UTC · Discuss

Pchd Chriss Belczyński passed away...
With deep regret, we announce that on January 13, 2024, Prof. Dr. hab. Krzysztof Belczyński, an employee of the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and Universe@Home project author, passed away.

Professor Belczyński had been associated with our institute since 1995. It was then that he began his research on novae stars, followed by the synthesis of stellar populations and the processes of formation of compact objects - neutron stars and black holes. He obtained his doctorate in physical sciences with a specialization in astronomy in 2001. Between 2000 and 2009, he completed numerous scientific internships at foreign research centers. From 2009 to 2017, he was associated with the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw. In 2010, he obtained his postdoctoral degree, and in 2014 he was awarded the title of professor of physical sciences. Since 2017, he had been employed at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw as a professor.

Professor Belczyński was a theoretical astrophysicist, specializing in the study of compact objects, such as black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs. He is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications, published in renowned international journals. He led numerous research projects, including the MAESTRO NCN grant and the MASTER FNP program, and supervised doctoral students. His research contributed significantly to the advancement of understanding the physics of compact objects and their evolution. His work is crucial for understanding the nature of gravitational wave sources, which are currently one of the most important topics of scientific research.
16 Jan 2024, 5:19:50 UTC · Discuss

Project maintenance
I have just received confirmation that on Thursday, May 4, I will be able to carry out work with the project servers.
Therefore, you can expect short-term interruptions in its operation between 8:00 - 16:00 CET
28 Apr 2023, 20:08:33 UTC · Discuss

Server room maintenance break
I got email with information that on 3th of January we get short internet access break in server room.
The break is planned between 7:00am and 9:00am CET.
1 Jan 2023, 16:51:20 UTC · Discuss

Maintenance break
As I inform recently in other topic we have planned maintenance break for CAMK power transform replacement on this weekend.
Our server will be switched off today (25.11) till Monday, 28.11.

I hope this change will go smoothly and we come back to normal work on Monday morning/afternoon.
25 Nov 2022, 5:19:16 UTC · Discuss

Electricity issue
On last two days we had serious electricity problem in CAMK (not only in server room - in whole building).
Unfortunately, the problem isn't solved yet, as some elements needs to be replaced on electricity supplier side.

We can get power cut on any time in next days without previous signal as currently our power line is used at maximum its capability.

I will inform you as soon as I get more information.
24 Oct 2022, 15:30:43 UTC · Discuss

This is incredible :)
Currently we have nearly 600'000 WU's in progress and you finish 300'000 WU's daily!

I never seem these numbers on our project :)

Very big THANK YOU for your support for our project :)

BTW, our server is not killed by this quantity of tasks mainly because of switching to SSD's.
8 Mar 2022, 17:00:49 UTC · Discuss

Short breake.
In the near future (today or tomorrow) there may be an unannounced downtime of the server. It should not last longer than an hour and is related to the change of some disks on the main project server.
We do not expect any loss of job, the whole thing should last no more than an hour.
11 Feb 2022, 13:17:59 UTC · Discuss

Temporary brakes on 2nd February
Tomorrow, on February 2, 2022, between 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., there will be Internet outages at our server room. This is related to the works planned by our Internet provider (NASK). None of our servers and services will be shut down, but there may be temporary problems with their availability.
1 Feb 2022, 17:14:34 UTC · Discuss

Network maintenance.
I got the email from CAMK:

"We need to switch off the whole CAMK computer network on Friday,
3rd September, 16:00 for major maintenance. We will do our best to turn it back
on as soon as possible, but in the worst case scenario the break may last until
Monday, 6th September, 8:00."

So, from about 3pm CET our servers will be switched off until network comes back.
1 Sep 2021, 19:09:28 UTC · Discuss

No tasks
I'm currently on hospital as I got Covid-19 infection with heart problems as complications.
Before I come back from hospital it will be no new tasks temporary...
27 Nov 2020, 12:17:29 UTC · Discuss

Maintenance breake
Our server room get maintenance breake from Friday, 2nd October, 16:00 to Monday, ~~4th~~ 5th October, 8:00
2 Oct 2020, 14:23:51 UTC · Discuss

New ULX's
New batch of ULX WU's are on server.

The work units are not so long and should finish in less then two ours on medium specs computer.

The application is compiled on 4.9 kernel in Debian 9.1.
On older kernels application will generate errors...
18 Mar 2020, 16:30:57 UTC · Discuss

A synthetic black hole database published!
With a bit of delay, we would like to announce a publication of the first synthetic database including both black holes in binaries, i.e. with gravitationally bound companion stars, and those which exist as single objects. The latter might have formed from massive single stars (at least twenty times more massive than the Sun) or, more probably, as a result of binary disruptions and stellar mergers. This study is a starting point for other more in-depth analysis of black hole populations in the Milky Way and other galaxies. You can find the publication here https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019ApJ...885....1W, whereas the database is publicly available here https://universeathome.pl/universe/bhdb.php.
3 Mar 2020, 7:49:27 UTC · Discuss

Server update
The project server software must be updated.
Unfortunately, this operation must take place today so I apologize for the lack of prior notice.
Over the next few days, downtime will be possible.
21 Dec 2019, 22:27:56 UTC · Discuss

Hardware upgrade
I just got info that we finally got new server for project and new database server.
Depend on when I arrive to Warsaw we will be off for about one to two days to move everything to the new machines.

It will happen probably from Thursday 24th October until Friday 26th or week later same days.
21 Oct 2019, 17:01:16 UTC · Discuss

Results databases
After last server update I have also prepared NFS based folders with results databases.
So, here is rsults page where you can download all processed data from our project.
26 Jul 2019, 17:12:14 UTC · Discuss

Server upgrade
For next few days I will not generate more tasks as I'm preparing to server software update.
The software will require few restarts and is planned later in this week - I will inform you when it happens exactly.
24 Jun 2019, 20:39:25 UTC · Discuss

Emission from ULXs
After a series of papers on gravitational wave sources, we published results concerning ultra-luminous X-ray sources. In the paper we analyse the anisotropic emission of radiation from these sources and show that the actual population of ultra-luminous X-ray sources differs from the observed one. Particularly, in flux limited surveys, the observed population will be highly biased toward black hole accretors, whereas neutron star accretors dominate volume-limited observations.

The work can be found here https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.08998
10 May 2019, 4:05:38 UTC · Discuss

Another paper on GW170817
Sorry for late notification!

Another research on the famous GW170817 source, which used data obtained from the Universe@Home project, have been published last year. In this study, it was shown that the merger rates of double neutron stars (calculated from one direct observation) stay in contradiction with these inferred from the observations of double pulsars in our Galaxy. The reason behind this tension is the delay time distribution which favours short delays. The study highlights the problem that scientist encounter trying to connect evolutionary predictions and the observations of the first double neutron star merger.

The original paper can be found here:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018arXiv181210065B
19 Apr 2019, 5:25:22 UTC · Discuss

Our paper on the famous double neutron star merger
My apologies for letting you know so late! In the previous year a very important paper appeared which partially used results from the Universe@Home project.

An international cooperation led by prof. Belczynski investigated the importance of different evolutionary scenarios leading to a double neutron star merger. The work was motivated by the ground-breaking discovery of GW170817 made by LIGO/Virgo collaboration (see e.g. https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/press-release-gw170817). The scenarios included the isolated binary evolution which was exclusively calculated on U@H. The simulations showed that among currently considered formation scenarios this one is the most promising. Such a result may lead to a larger interest put in isolated binary evolution simulations and, consequently, to the results obtained thanks to the cooperation of thousands of U@H volunteers.

The original work can be found for example here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.00632
5 Mar 2019, 13:31:56 UTC · Discuss

We got a grant!
As Krzysztof have already said, we got a grant in the Maestro program. It will allow to continue the project for the next few years. We hope that the project will still provide an exceptionally computational power for the science.

The Maestro program of the National Science Centre aims at providing funding for pioneering research. The research should be done by groups led by senior scientists. The projects must result in extending our understanding of physical phenomena and potentially lead to scientific discoveries. It is one of the biggest funding programs of the NSC.

You can read about the scientific goals here
https://ncn.gov.pl/sites/default/files/listy-rankingowe/2018-06-15/streszczenia/418854-en.pdf

for Polish see
https://ncn.gov.pl/sites/default/files/listy-rankingowe/2018-06-15/streszczenia/418854-pl.pdf
28 Feb 2019, 14:37:24 UTC · Discuss

GREAT NEWS!!!
It looks like we got some funding for our project :)
More info tomorrow (or in next few days) :)
20 Feb 2019, 5:07:18 UTC · Discuss

Problems sorted :)
Recently we had some problems with validation process. Now the problems are sorted and all WU's from new batch are pointed correctly.
Also, new applications version are available for:
Windows 64bit
Linux x86_64
ARM64
ARM32

At the moment there is no app for Android but I hope it will be available soon.
5 Feb 2019, 14:42:43 UTC · Discuss

Server site maintenance break between 11th and 13th January
I just get message form server room staff:

"Dear all
A big shutdown of our network is coming!
Due to the measurements of the power grid, we have to switch off
the computer network in the whole building from 11 to 13 January 2019.
During this time, no computers will be working and even there will be
no voltage in the electrical sockets.
We are very sorry for the inconvenience, but we have little influence on it.
Best regards
sysadms"
8 Jan 2019, 15:56:53 UTC · Discuss

Patreon
As you know, I'm working on Universe@Home for some years now. I was also one of creators and admins of Radioactive@Home project and few another BOINC projects.
Unfortunately, for long time I'm working on this project voluntarily as is no funds on it to my role.
Because of this, I will ask you for support on my Patreon profile.
12 Dec 2018, 16:19:58 UTC · Discuss

Server crash
As you probably notice we had serious crash on server.
Unfortunately, both SSD's with project database in RAID1 configuration died simultaneously...
I have restored database from backup on second server but data are 24h oldest then crash time.
20 Nov 2018, 14:39:08 UTC · Discuss

Server upgrade
Tomorrow (24th October 2018) I will attempt to update BOINC server software.

This will cause number of server stops and possible some our web site problems.
23 Oct 2018, 17:26:27 UTC · Discuss

Server room renovation
Between 13-18 April the server room in Astronomical Center will be renovated. Therefore, our servers will probably be shut down.

Sorry for the inconvenience!
5 Apr 2018, 7:18:47 UTC · Discuss

BHDB application
On our server just start new BHDB (Black Hole Database) application.
First work units release will be testing one, to check if everything is ok with application and points system :)

In near future we will publish more information about it.
9 Mar 2018, 14:40:44 UTC · Discuss

Meltown and Spectre
As you know, security issues arrive to computers world (Meltdown and Spectre)...
Yes, we work on it, but the problem is that is still no patch for this bugs, so we decide to slow down until "big boys" find solution...
27 Jan 2018, 0:23:38 UTC · Discuss

Next paper published in the Astrophysical Journal
Simulations done with the use of Universe@Home and the analysis performed in the cooperation between University of Warsaw (Poland) and University of Ferrara (Italy) resulted in a research paper publication in the Astrophycial Journal, one of the highest ranked scientific journals worldwide! The article can be found on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01586

The research on hypothetical quark stars was the first of its kind and gave a few very interesting conclusions. Although we showed that the presence of these objects cannot be proved or rejected on the base of available observations, quark stars have a potential to explain the long gamma ray burst phenomena and the so called "strangelets pollution" problem.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Symulacje wykonane z wykorzystaniem Universe@Home i analiza wyników przeprowadzona we współpracy pomiędzy uniwersytetami w Warszawie i w Ferrarze (Włochy) zaowocowały publikacją w the Astrophysical Journal, który jest jednym z najbardziej prestiżowych czasopism naukowych na świecie!. Artykuł można znaleźć na stronie arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01586 (po angielsku)

Te badania nad hipotetycznymi gwiazdami kwarkowymi były pierwszymi w swoim rodzaju i dały parę bardzo ciekawych wyników. Chociaż wciąż nie możemy potwierdzić ani zaprzeczyć istnieniu tych obiektów na podstawie dostępnych obserwacji, to gwiazdy kwarkowe mogą potencjalnie wyjasnić takie zjawiska jak długie błyski gamma, czy problem tzw. "zaniczyszczenia kwarkami dziwnymi".
6 Nov 2017, 11:09:53 UTC · Discuss

Maintenance shutdown
Tomorrow (28th October 2017) our servers will be switched off due to electricity maintenance works in servers room.
27 Oct 2017, 16:08:26 UTC · Discuss

American Astronomical Society featured our research!
AAS Nova, a service run by American Astronomical Society, featured our research on ultraluminous X-ray sources! Authors of the note emphasize the fact that data was acquired through volunteer computing. You can see the note on
http://aasnova.org/2017/09/29/identifying-bright-x-ray-beasts/

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AAS Nova, serwis prowadzony przez Amerykańskie Towarzystwo Astronomiczne, wyróżnił nasze badania nad ultrajasnymi źródłami rentgenowskimi. Autorzy informacji podkreślili, że dane zostały otrzymane przez obliczenia wolontariackie. Artykuł można znaleźć pod (english only):
http://aasnova.org/2017/09/29/identifying-bright-x-ray-beasts/
2 Oct 2017, 18:53:34 UTC · Discuss

Server task generating breake...
As some users are reporting serious problems with finished WU's uploading I have to dry server, unload queue to get more info what's happaend.
So, we will not generate new taks at least for next two-three weeks.
30 Sep 2017, 0:27:25 UTC · Discuss

Our result files
Some results of all of us work are available now under "Server->Our results" menu.
There are also files with processed data available for all interested in this subject.

In next few days I will add also files for QuarkStars application entry.
28 Sep 2017, 22:24:51 UTC · Discuss

Research on ULXs finally published!
For a few month we were analyzing a vast amount of data we acquired thanks to the project and finally we published our results. You can find the article here (https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.06155).

Thanks to a large amount of data, we were able to show that ULXs might indeed be a very short phase of extreme accretion in XRBs and not any exotic objects. Our side-result showed that a non-monotonic relation exist between the number of ULXs in a galaxy and the average metallicity (i.e. fraction of heavy ions in stars), which may be useful for obtaining additional information about stellar populations.

We plan to make further research in this field!
26 Sep 2017, 22:07:58 UTC · Discuss

Maintenance break
We are planning maintenance break on 28th and 29th of August.

In this two days we will move main server and work station to new location and also we will connect another new server.

The new server will be used as storage machine to serve our results database on Internet and make it available for every interested person or institution.
18 Aug 2017, 15:17:58 UTC · Discuss

Short breake
Because I have to go abroad for few days it will be short delay in WU's deployment.

I will create some more about Wednesday.
23 Jun 2017, 15:44:12 UTC · Discuss

New apps and WU's
In next few days I will release only short series of WU in different applications because I have to test new work generators for it.
Also, I will start to prepare database with all results for that WU's and slowly start to prepare web interface to download it for everybody who will be interested. This can take one to two weeks as I have other tasks to do in other projects as well :)
18 Apr 2017, 11:09:54 UTC · Discuss

Code update
Most of you have probably noticed that we’ve started to introduce a new code to
Universe@Home. The changes are content-related (new models of astrophysical
phenomena) as well as technical (errors in the code). We hope that they will
solve the problems some of you encountered in the previous version of the code.

We’re still going to do research oriented towards binary stars and their
influence on their surroundings. New results, which will be published shortly,
have indicated new directions. Thanks to your help, our work will be continued!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zapewne część z Was już zauważyła, że zaczęliśmy wprowadzać nowy kod na
Universe@Home. Zmiany dotyczą natury merytorycznej (nowe modele zjawisk
astrofizycznych), jak i technicznych (błędy w kodzie). Mamy nadzieję, że
rozwiążą one również problemy jakie niektórzy z Was napotkali w poprzedniej
wersji kodu.

Dalej zamierzamy prowadzić badania nakierunkowane na gwiazdy podwójne i ich
wpływ na otoczenie. Nowe rezultaty, które już niedługo powinny
zostać opublikowane, wskazały nam nowe kierunki. Dzięki
waszej pomocy mamy zamiar dalej nad nimi pracować!
11 Apr 2017, 9:30:50 UTC · Discuss

Server maintenance
Due to moving server to another building tomorrow (31th March) we need to shutdown our main server for few hours.
This will start about 10am UTC and it will take about 4 hours.
30 Mar 2017, 13:35:34 UTC · Discuss

Evolution of a black hole ULX

The investigation of ULX's nature is still in progress and currently we are
waiting for feedback from our collaborators. Meanwhile, I want to share with you
a figure of the evolution of a typical ULX with black hole accretor.

To make the long story short, two massive stars bore in a binary. One which is
heavier expands as a result of its nuclear evolution and starts to shed mass
onto its companion.This mass transfer is dynamically unstable and the second
star becomes engulfed with the primary star's matter. We call this phase a
common envelope and it happens typically when the system's age is between 4 and
5 million years.

If the companion has enough orbital energy, the common envelope is rejected and
the stars' separation shrinks significantly. The primary needs now less than
100,000 years to collapse and form a black hole.

The system's orbital energy is constantly emitted in gravitational waves, which
results in further separation shrinkage. Simultaneously, the secondary star
expands. If it manages to commence the mass transfer onto the black hole within
the first 500 million years (typically during the first 10-20 million years),
the flow will be strong enough to power a ULX.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nadal trwa badanie właściwości ULX, a obecnie czekamy na informacje zwrotną od
naszych współpracowników. W międzyczasie chcielibyśmy podzielić się z Wami
rysunkiem ewolucji typowego ULXa z akreującą czarną dziurą.

W skrócie, w układzie podwójnym powstały dwie masywne gwiazdy. Cięższa z nich
rozrasta się w skutek ewolucji nuklearnej i zaczyna przelewać masę na gwiazdę
towarzyszącą. Ten transfer masy jest dynamicznie niestabilny i druga gwiazda
zostaje otoczona przez zewnętrzne warstwy pierwszej. Nazywamy tę fazę wspólną
otoczką i zazwyczaj ma ona miejsce, gdy system jest w wieku pomiędzy 4 a 5
milionów lat.

Jeśli towarzysząca gwiazda ma wystarczająco dużo energii orbitalnej, otoczka
zostaje odrzucona, a odległość między gwiazdami znacząco się kurczy. Gwiazda
główna potrzebuje teraz mniej niż 100,000 lat, żeby zapaść się grawitacyjnie i
utworzyć czarną dziurę.

Energia orbitalna systemu jest stale tracona na skutek emisji fal
grawitacyjnych, co skutkuje dalszym kurczeniem się orbity. Jednocześnie druga
gwiazda zwiększa swój promień. Jeśli zdoła rozpocząć transfer masy na czarną
dziurę w ciągu pierwszych 500 milionów lat (zwykle podczas pierwszych 10-20
milionów lat), przepływ będzie wystarczająco silny, żeby zasilić ULXa.
23 Jan 2017, 15:02:12 UTC · Discuss

Back to work!
After vacation time, we are getting back to work! There are some significant
goals in front of the U@H and we still count on your help!

First of all, we are continuing our cooperation with Cambridge and Ferrara.
Scientist are becoming more and more aware of the project and appreciate the
help in obtaining necessary data. The manuscript about ULXs should be published
in the nearest future. We think the conclusions will bring about a vivid
discussion. We are also preparing large-scale simulations for the BHspin
application which will provide valuable predictions of gravitational waves for
the next LIGO runs.

From the technical point of view, we are going to make several improvements this
year. An additional server for processing data will be installed. Additionally,
applications will be adapted for the GPU computing. We also plan to establish a
database with public access which will store the results and possibly provide
some visualisation tools.

As always, we will keep you informed on the progress and your feedback will
still be highly appreciated!

U@H team

--------------------------------------------------------

Po wakacjach wracamy do pracy! Przed U@H wiele wyzwań i nadal liczymy na Waszą
pomoc! Przede wszystkim nadal kontynuujemy współpracę z Cambridge i Ferrarą.
Naukowcy coraz częściej słyszą o projekcie i doceniają pomoc w pozyskiwaniu
danych. Praca dotycząca ULXów zostanie wkrótce opublikowana. Sądzimy, że wnioski
wywołają żywą dyskusję. Przygotowujemy również wielkoskalowe symulacje na
aplikację BHspin. Dostarczy ona ważnych prognoz na temat fal grawitacyjnych
dla kolejnych obserwacji LIGO.

Od strony technicznej, dokonamy w tym roku kilku ulepszeń. Zainstalujemy
dodatkowy serwer do przetwarzania danych. Ponadto dostosujemy aplikacje do
obliczeń na GPU. Planujemy również stworzyć bazę danych z dostępem publicznym,
która będzie służyła przechowywaniu wyników i być może dostarczy również
narzędzi do ich wizualizacji.

Jak zawsze będziemy Was informować o postępach i bardzo cenić Wasze uwagi!

Zespół U@H
8 Nov 2016, 14:47:48 UTC · Discuss

Server maintenance
Today we had ordered two SSD drives for our server. The drives will be used for database use which should significantly improve server performance.
I will setup it on Friday or Saturday depend of delivery day and during the process server will be switched off.
7 Nov 2016, 15:25:52 UTC · Discuss

Trochę informacji teoretycznych na temat aplikacji GPU
Ze względu na ograniczenia silnika forum, zdecydowałem się na opublikowanie posta o teoretycznym aspekcie pracy nad naszą aplikacją GPU na blogu DobreProgramy

I have published some theoretical informations about GPU aspects of our application on DobreProgramy portal (in Polish).
26 Oct 2016, 12:24:27 UTC · Discuss

UV and BHspin2 tasks
Regarding to latest problems with tasks submissions to your computers we plan to make some maintenance work on our server and results analyse machine at the end of this week or start of next one.
The server will be stopped for about 6 hours but I will publish info when this happens before we start.
13 Sep 2016, 16:17:27 UTC · Discuss

The reionisation project
The results of the Universe@Home project will be used by the University of
Cambridge! The cooperation will concern the reionisation of the Universe
throughout the cosmic time. This process has a huge impact on the evolution of
stars and galaxies.

Although University of Cambridge has a vast computational power, the number of
project run on their computers and other problems made Universe@Home a
promising alternative.

We will let you know about the details of the project as soon as we obtain the
first results.

------------------------------------------

Wyniki otrzymywane w ramach projektu Universe@Home będą wykorzystane na
Uniwersytecie w Cambridge! Współpraca będzie dotyczyć rejonizacji (ponownej
jonizacji) we Wszechświata. Proces ten ma postawowe znaczenie dla
ewolucji gwiazd i galaktyk.

Pomimo tego, że Uniwersytet w Cambridge ma potęrzne komputery, ilość projektów
które są tam prowadzene i inne problemy sprawiają, że Universe@Home stanowi
bardzo obiecującą alternatywę.

O szczegółach damy znać jak tylko otrzymamy pierwsze rezultaty tego projektu.
12 Aug 2016, 15:13:02 UTC · Discuss

New QuarkStars application
We have just started the tests of a new application. The main goal is to analyse
the possibility of observational detection of quark stars. These objects are
composed of quarks, i.e. particles smaller than neutron or proton. Quark stars are
nearly similar to neutron stars, but we may observe their impact on stellar
populations.

------------------------------------------

Właśnie uruchomiliśmy nową aplikację. Jej głównym celem jest analiza możliwości
obserwacyjnej detekcji gwiazd kwarkowych. Te obiekty składają się z kwarków,
czyli cząstek mniejszych niż neutrony czy protony. Gwiazdy kwarkowe są prawie
identyczne z gwiazdami neutronowymi, ale jest możliwe wyznaczenie ich wpływu na
populacje gwiazdowe
22 Jul 2016, 12:26:27 UTC · Discuss

Nature article!
Results from the Universe@Home project were published in the most prominent
scientific journal, Nature! The article depicts a stellar evolutionary scenario
that leads to the formation of double black holes, which are probable
sources of gravitational waves similar to those observed recently.

It is a sequel to the article from year 2010, which predicted that the first
detection of gravitational waves will rather origin from a double black hole
merger than from a
double neutron star merger. The latter had been favoured by the majority of
scientists until recent discoveries.

The links to the article are provided below. Please notice especially the
acknowledgements in the Nature publication.

Nature article:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.04531v2 (this article is identical to the Nature
publication, which does not have a free access:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v534/n7608/full/nature18322.html)

The 2010 paper:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.0386v2

---------------

Wyniki otrzymane w ramach projektu Universe@Home zostały opublikowane w
najbardziej prestiżowym czasopiśmie naukowym Nature! Artykuł opisuje evolucję
gwiazdową, która prowadzi do formowania się podwójnych czarnych dziur. Są one
potencjalnymi źródłami fal grawitacyjnych, takich jakie te, które zaobserwowano
niedawno.

Jest to uaktualniona wersja artykułu z 2010 roku, w którym przewidziano, że
pierwsza detekcja fal grawitacyjny będzie pochodziła z koalescencji czarnych
dziur, a nie dwóch gwiazd neutronowych. Ta druga opcja była przewidywana przez
większość naukowców, co zmieniły dopiero niedawne odkrycia.

Poniżej znajdziecie namiary na oba artykuły. Zwróccie szczególnie uwagę na
podziękowania w Nature.

Nature article:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.04531v2 (tan artykuł jest identyczny z tym w Nature,
który nie jest niestety dostępny za darmo:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v534/n7608/full/nature18322.html)

The 2010 paper:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.0386v2
12 Jul 2016, 8:42:32 UTC · Discuss

Universe@Home and BOINC Pentathlon on admin point of view
Better late than never, so a few words about how Pentathlon looks from the
administrator’s point of view

As I have explained before, loads of pressure hits the server with thousands of
computers connecting with "bunkered" WU's. Usually we had ~45'000-50'000 tasks
in progress and just before the start the quantity grew up to 250'000 and later
stayed at the level of about 220'000-240'000 tasks in progress.

As you probably noticed from the picture showed in the other topic the only
problem we had was with hard disk speed because of thousands database operations
in the background of other server tasks.

As you can see in the picture below, almost in the whole Pentathlon competition
time disk utilisation was at 100% or just below it. We usually have stable disk
utilisation at 40-50%.

In the middle of the competition I also switched off all unnecessary daemons and
other software which usually works on our server and even without them the
server was off-line for 30 minutes.

Now, the situation is stable. We still have more tasks in progress than before
the competition (which makes us very happy) and we will also prepare to buy some
SSD's asap :)

Thank you very much for your power in Pentathlon and obviously for every day
with us and our tasks :)

Lepiej późno niż wcale. Tak więc kilka słów o tym jak Pentathlon wyglądał z
punktu widzenia administratora

Jak tłumaczyłem wcześniej, bardzo duże obciążenie pojawia się na serwerze gdy
tysiące komputerów podłączą się ze swoimi "zbunkrowanymi" WU. Zwykle mamy
~45'000-50'000 zadań w toku, a zaraz przed rozpoczęciem ta ilość wzrosła do
250'000, a później pozostała na poziomie 220'000-240'000 zadań w toku.

Jak pewnie zauważyliście na załączonym obrazku, jedyny problem, jaki mieliśmy to
opóźnienia w operacjach dyskowych i wynikał on z tysięcy operacji na bazie danych.

Również widać na poniższym obrazku, że prawie przez cały czas trwania konkursu
Pentathlon wykorzystanie dysku było na poziomie 100% lub nieco poniżej. Zwykle
mamy wykorzystanie dysku na stabilnym poziomie 40-50%.

W środku konkursu wyłączyłem wszystkie zbędne demony i oprogramowanie zwykle
pracujące/działające na serwerze i nawet bez nich serwer był niedostępny przez
30 minut.

Teraz sytuacja jest stabilna. Nadal mamy więcej zadań w toku niż przed
konkursem (co bardzo nas cieszy) i będziemy się przygotowywać do kupienia dysków
SSD tak szybko jak to możliwe.

Dziękujemy bardzo za zaangażowanie w Pentathlon i oczywiście za każdy dzień z
nami i z naszymi zadaniami :)
27 Jun 2016, 18:22:04 UTC · Discuss

Universe@Home in BOINC Pentathlon
As most of you probably knows, we are a part of BOINC Pentathlon competition.

Our server will be tested by you from 2016-06-12 00:00:00 UTC until 2016-06-19 00:00:00 UTC .
10 Jun 2016, 12:01:09 UTC · Discuss

Recognition for gravitational waves discovery
I have a pleasure to inform you, unless you already know, that prof. Krzysztof Belczyński,
the PI of Universe@Home project, in recognition for his involvement in discovery of gravitational
waves, was awarded recently with the Medal of Nicolas Copernicus and the Breakthrough Prize.

The former is the most prestigious prize awarded by the Polish Academy of Sciences. The latter is an
international award bestowed for remarkable scientific outcome. It was awarded for the whole group,
which took part in the research.

The results from the Universe@Home project are still used to increase our understanding of
gravitational waves and their role in the Universe.

-------------------

Mam przyjemność poinformować Was, choć możliwe, że już wiecie, że prof. Krzysztof Belczyński,
kierownik projektu Universe@Home, w uznaniu swoich zasług w odkryciu fal grawitacyjnych, został
nagrodzony Medalem im. Mikołaja Kopernika i Breakthrough Prize.

Pierwsza nagroda jest najbardziej prestiżą przyznawaną przez Polską Akademię Nauk. Druga
natomiast to międzynarodowa nagroda przyznawana za znaczące odkrycia naukowe. Została ona
przyznana całej grupie biorącej udział w badaniach.

Wyniki otrzymywane w ramach projektu Universe@Home są ciągle używane do poszerzania naszej
wiedzy na temat fal grawitacyjnych i ich roli we Wszechświecie.
17 May 2016, 19:02:49 UTC · Discuss

Black hole merger (PL: Koalescencja czarnych dziur)
Wersja polskojęzyczna poniżej

You have already heard about the discovery of gravitational waves from a merger
of double black hole. In our project, specifically in the BHspin application, we
were also working on the evolution of such systems. If you are interested in the
way how they form and evolve, we prepared for you the description of the evolution of
a typical system, which results in the emission of gravitational waves like these
from the recent observations. You may found the text, together with a nice plot,
in the forum's science section. Please enjoy!

Prawdopodobnie wiecie już o odkryciu fal grawitacyjnych z koalescencji czarnych
dziur. W naszym projekcie, a konkretnie za pośrednictwem aplikacji BHspin,
analizowaliśmy ewolucję takich systemów. Jeżeli jesteście zainteresowani tym jak
podwójne czarne dziury się tworzą, to przygotowaliśmy dla was opis
popularnonaukowy jednego z typowych systemów. Jego ewolucja prowadzi do emisji
fali grawitacyjnej jak ta z niedawnych obserwacji. Tekst razem z poglądowym
rysunkiem można znaleźć na forum w dziale Science. Zapraszamy!
20 Apr 2016, 12:51:12 UTC · Discuss

Your real name...
Few days ago we had added option to add yours real full name in preferences.
Setting it also allow us to publish it in future science publication as research supporters.
22 Mar 2016, 15:24:07 UTC · Discuss

Gravitational waves vs. StarTrack code
You have probably heard about the outstanding discovery of gravitational waves announced a week ago (e.g., http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361). It is a milestone in our understanding of the Nature. Universe@Home was not involved directly in the detection, but it is relevant to highlight, that already in year 2010, prof. Belczyński predicted, that the first gravitational waves observation will involve a double black hole merger, whereas most of the scientists claimed that it will concern a merger of neutron stars. The original paper can be found here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010ApJ...715L.138B.

Please observe that prof. Belczyński used then the same StarTrack code that we are using in the Universe@Home project! Of course, now we have a bit updated version. Therefore, the recent discovery proved the reliability of our methods!

If you like to learn more about gravitational waves, I recommend a thorough but comprehensible introduction by the discoverers http://www.ligo.org/science.php.
19 Feb 2016, 15:09:26 UTC · Discuss

New models and television program about U@H (in polish)
We have finished a bunch of models, which will be published shortly. However, still a lot more are waiting for investigation. In the case of ULXs we are working on the influence of more primordial matter composition on formation of these mysterious objects. The BHSPIN application concentrate on black holes spin (i.e., rotation), which influences the mass accretion processes (necessary for the detection of this latent objects), and emission of gravitational waves (a.k.a. propagation of space-time wrinkles). The last process is recently raises a unprecedented interest due to the rumours of its first observations. Predicted 100 years (precisely) gravitational waves have not been detected yet. Our results may play a significant role in understanding the observational results.

In polish public television appeared in the end of previous year a program about scientific computing considering also our project. Unfortunately it is available only in polish. You may found it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZIkjBXrcMM
21 Jan 2016, 19:27:49 UTC · Discuss

Intel 64-bit Mac OS 10.5 or later support
I had compiled Mac OS version of ULX application.

Apologise if application will crash on your system (please report this to me) as I have no experience in Mac OS compiling.

If the application provide right results I will also add support for BHspin app.
18 Jan 2016, 13:32:35 UTC · Discuss

New ULX application
Last week we prepared the ULX application which is closely related to the previous (now obsolete) X-ray application. It is investigating the possibility of connecting the Ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULX) with X-ray binaries (XRB). We want to make a comprehensive study far wider than the one from the test project which was published in September.

ULXs are one of the greatest conundrums currently investigated in astronomy and every month new observations are coming up. Our code is the best to deal with the problem of their nature from the theoretical side. ULXs are very rare systems. In our simulations only 1 XRB per 100 have a very short phase of such a high emission and only in some particular models.

If you have any questions of comments concerning this application, please put them in this thread.
24 Nov 2015, 19:51:50 UTC · Discuss

New BHspin application
As you might have noticed we added a new application recently. It is devoted to investigate the spin evolution of black holes.

When a black hole accretes matter, at the same time it accretes the angular momentum, which results in faster spinning. In this model we examine the influence of this process. What makes it particularly interesting is the fact the the LIGO observatory of gravitational waves started to operate recently. Therefore, in the near future, our theoretical predictions will be checked against observation.

Wojciech Gładysz, who cooperates with us in this project prepared a longer description of this problem which I posted in the Science section. I invite you to take a look.

I hope that you will become interested in this research!
12 Nov 2015, 15:51:28 UTC · Discuss

Android application
Thanks to the user matszpk we can start Today testing Android version of our application.

Application will be available soon but only for users who mark "Test application" in their options.
29 Oct 2015, 14:16:24 UTC · Discuss

New code
We have made significant upgrades to the code, removed a few bugs, and incorporated new additional physics to widen our field of research.

Due to this fact we delete the remaining work units. These which are currently processed by users will stay unharmed and the points will be added as before. Tomorrow we will compile the new code and prepare new workunits.

If you find any problems with the new code, please let us know.
20 Oct 2015, 20:00:31 UTC · Discuss

Longer work units
From new batch we start to send about 4 times longer work units...

Longer WU's allow us to check some models more deeply and also this change will unload server by giving us same data in less files...
12 Oct 2015, 20:43:20 UTC · Discuss

New code
We have just finished the primary tests of the new version of the code. This gave us a green light to start the computation of a grid of models. We want especially to test the brand new approach to the mass transfer between stars in binary systems and the physics of accretion onto compact objects (i.e., neutron stars and black holes). These processes have a fundamental role during the evolution of binaries. Moreover, they also influence the evolution of whole galaxies and even the Universe itself.

As soon as partial results will be obtained and analysed, we will provide you with more details and news.

Thanks for you help!
17 Sep 2015, 8:21:57 UTC · Discuss

New applicaion
Yestarday I got new application for our project.
Currently I need to make some changes in work generator to make it compatible with new app.
I would like to make some WU's for new application in test mode and if everything will work fine - I will generate more WU's in next 2-3 days.
11 Aug 2015, 7:09:15 UTC · Discuss

Poster
We made a poster to present the results of Universe@home project on the international conference. I must admit that the project itself gathered more interest among scientists than our results! Below you can find the poster. Generally it is the summary of the article but with more graphics.

Go here http://universeathome.pl/universe/img/poster.pdf for bigger version.

Till the end of the week I will provide for you descriptions of these typical evolutionary routes. This is exactly what your computers are calculating.

Please fill free to ask any other poster related questions in this thread.
13 Jul 2015, 17:47:42 UTC · Discuss

Short breake
For personal circumstances I am forced to go abroad for two weeks.
I'm not sure if I get any Internet connection over there and if not, during this period new tasks will not be generated.

Apologise for this...
26 Jun 2015, 12:08:42 UTC · Discuss

Away...
Because I'm going abroad for a week tonight I will generate large quantity of work units on server late evening/overnight. Until all tasks on work generator finishes server will be stopped/delayed on some operations...
23 Apr 2015, 9:52:44 UTC · Discuss

Two new series with new app version generated
First series (12 - 'universe_xray_12_20000_1-100000_695' ) have bug in parameters file and can't finish - I have cancelled it on server, unfortunately some of you get it.
New one (13, 14) should be ok.
22 Apr 2015, 7:07:37 UTC · Discuss

The brief summary of the scientific article
As I promised in previous message I provide you with a short explanation of the work we have done on the University of Warsaw using the data acquired with Universe@home project. I remind you that the article can be found at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.08745v1. The main subject of this article are the extreme ultra-luminous X-ray sources (EULX). Probably a bit enigmatic name, so I will start with explaining what they are.

Most stars in the Universe are the binary stars (i.e., two stars bound gravitationally). In such systems a lot of interesting phenomena occur that are prohibited for single stars.

Let's take a rare group of binary stars in which one object is the black hole (BH) and the companion is on such a close orbit that the mass is stripped from it by strong gravitational force. This material falls onto the BH but on the way it forms an accretion disk. Friction produces large temperatures which results in energetic radiation in X-ray band. We name such systems the X-ray binaries (XRB).

If we make the additional assumption that the X-ray emission is extremely energetic we will acquire the EULX systems. We are not sure what is the real nature of them. The BH may be very massive or may be similar in this case to its cousins in XRBs. Even the neutron stars (NS) are possible as accreting objects. These (and other) questions make EULX a perfect field for study.

In the presented paper we perform the numerical simulation to study the evolution of a large number of systems. In total we evolved a billion stars and from this awesome sample we dig out the rare systems whose X-ray emission is comparable to EULX. Then we performed the statistical studies and distinguished the evolutionary routes leading to the phases of this super-emission. We found that both BH and NS accretors are possible and that they should be easily differentiated by their companions.

The main outcome of this work is that EULXs are not separate group of objects among XRBs but they are a very common phase in the evolution of a large number of systems. This phase is very short (1-10,000 yr - extremely short in cosmic scale) but occurs so frequently that we are able to observe a few EULX at any time in the life of the Galaxy. Currently we observe about 500 ultra-luminous X-ray source (ULX) but only one EULX (10-1000 more luminous than ULX). The forthcoming article will deal with the regular ULXs.
9 Apr 2015, 12:02:29 UTC · Discuss

Badges description change
As one of the our crunchers suggest, with new science discoveries we had to change our badges descriptions (visible when you move mouse cursor over it)...
1 Apr 2015, 14:34:53 UTC · Discuss

The first scientific outcome!
I have a pleasure to announce that the first article of the Universe@home project is finished! It appeared today on the http://arXiv.org, which is the official place for posting scientific articles. The writing can be found here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.08745.

On behalf of the team I would like to thank all the volunteers who participated in the Universe@home test project. We hope that this is only the beginning and you will still help us in comprehending the Universe.

Shortly, I will provide you with a summary of the work written in the less formal language but meanwhile I encourage you to take a look. Our project is mentioned there a few times. Especially, please note the acknowledgements.
31 Mar 2015, 17:59:49 UTC · Discuss

Work Units cancelled
I had to cancel whole '9' series of work units on server.
Please cancel all WU's with '9' as first number in WU name.

Apologise for inconvenience
31 Mar 2015, 13:13:07 UTC · Discuss

Results files size
It's important to mention to all crunchers that currently in our project all WU's generate large results files. For every single work unit results can take up to 70MB of compressed data (~400MB before compression) and this quantity of data must be uploaded back to server.
For crunchers with slow internet connection there is a risk that they possible get a problem with uploading files before deadline.

This will change in future but for current project demands the files with all data are required.
26 Feb 2015, 11:54:41 UTC · Discuss

Project officialy started
I would like to announce, that our main Universe@Home project server is officially started.
I believe, that our application is stable, checkpoints work correctly but as this server is just started, few things must be still corrected.
21 Feb 2015, 11:10:54 UTC · Discuss

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