Evaluating Cache Coherent Shared Virtual Memory for Heterogeneous Multicore Chips

The trend in industry is towards heterogeneous multicore processors (HMCs), including chips with CPUs and massively-threaded throughput-oriented processors (MTTOPs) such as GPUs. Although current homogeneous chips tightly couple the cores with cache-coherent shared virtual memory (CCSVM), this is not the communication paradigm used by any current HMC. In this paper, we present a CCSVM design for a CPU/MTTOP chip, as well as an extension of the pthreads programming model, called xthreads, for programming this HMC. Our goal is to evaluate the potential performance benefits of tightly coupling heterogeneous cores with CCSVM

Lensing and high-z supernova surveys

Gravitational lensing causes the distribution of observed brightnesses of standard candles at a given redshift to be highly non-gaussian. The distribution is strongly, and asymmetrically, peaked at a value less than the expected value in a homogeneous Robertson-Walker universe. Therefore, given any small sample of observations in an inhomogeneous universe, the most likely observed luminosity is at flux values less than the Robertson-Walker value. This paper explores the impact of this systematic error due to lensing upon surveys predicated on measuring standard candle brightnesses. We re-analyze recent results from the high-z supernova team (Riess et al. 1998), both when most of the matter in the universe is in the form of compact objects (represented by the empty-beam expression, corresponding to the maximal case of lensing), and when the matter is continuously distributed in galaxies. We find that the best-fit model remains unchanged (at Omega_m=0, Omega_Lambda=0.45), but the confidence contours change size and shape, becoming larger (and thus allowing a broader range of parameter space) and dropping towards higher values of matter density, Omega_m (or correspondingly, lower values of the cosmological constant, Omega_Lambda). These effects are slight when the matter is continuously distributed. However, the effects become considerably more important if most of the matter is in compact objects. For example, neglecting lensing, the Omega_m=0.5, Omega_Lambda=0.5 model is more than 2 sigma away from the best fit. In the empty-beam analysis, this cosmology is at 1 sigma.Comment: 11 pages, 3 ps figures. uses aaspp4.sty. accepted to ApJ Letters. includes analysis of lensing due to matter continuously distributed in galaxie

Off equilibrium dynamics of the Frustrated Ising Lattice Gas

We study by means of Monte Carlo simulations the off equilibrium properties of a model glass, the Frustrated Ising Lattice Gas (FILG) in three dimensions. We have computed typical two times quantities, like density-density autocorrelations and the autocorrelation of internal degrees of freedom. We find an aging scenario particularly interesting in the case of the density autocorrelations in real space which is very reminiscent of spin glass phenomenology. While this model captures the essential features of structural glass dynamics, its analogy with spin glasses may bring the possibility of its complete description using the tools developed in spin glass theory.Comment: Phys. Rev. E (Rapid Communication), 1999 (probably May

A Comparison of X-ray and Optical Emission in Cassiopeia A

Broadband optical and narrowband Si XIII X-ray images of the young Galactic supernova remnant Cas A obtained over several decades are used to investigate spatial and temporal correlations on both large and small scales. The data consist of optical and near infrared ground-based and Hubble Space Telescope images taken between 1951 and 2011, and X-ray images from Einstein, ROSAT, and Chandra taken between 1979 and 2013. We find weak spatial correlations between the remnant's emission features on large scales, but several cases of good optical/X-ray correlations on small scales for features which have brightened due to recent interaction with the reverse shock. We also find instances where: (i) a time delay is observed between the appearance of a feature's optical and X-ray emissions, (ii) displacements of several arcseconds between a feature's X-ray and optical emission peaks and, (iii) regions showing no corresponding X-ray or optical emissions. To explain this behavior, we propose a inhomogeneous model for Cas A's ejecta consisting of small, dense optically emitting knots (n ~ 10^(2-3)/cm^(3)) and a much lower density (n ~ 0.1 - 1/cm^(3)) diffuse X-ray emitting component often spatially associated with optical emission knots. The X-ray emitting component is sometimes linked to optical clumps through shock induced mass ablation generating trailing material leading to spatially offset X-ray/optical emissions. A range of ejecta densities can also explain the observed X-ray/optical time delays since the remnant's 5000 km/s reverse shock heats dense ejecta clumps to temperatures around 3x10^4 K relatively quickly which then become optically bright while more diffuse ejecta become X-ray bright on longer timescales. Highly inhomogeneous ejecta as proposed here for Cas A may help explain some of the X-ray/opticalfeatures seen in other young core collapse SN remnants.Comment: 31 pages, 21 figures. Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal. Please contact the corresponding author for higher resolution postscript versions of the figures ([email protected]