NERSCPowering Scientific Discovery Since 1974  NERSC Initiative
for Scientific Exploration (NISE) 2010 Awards  Bridging the Gaps
Between Fluid and Kinetic Magnetic Reconnection Simulations in
Large Systems  Amitava Bhattacharjee, University of New
Hampshire  Associated NERSC Project: Center for Integrated
Computation and Analysis of Reconnection and Turbulence (m148),
Principal Investigator: Amitava Bhattacharjee  NISE Award:
1,000,000 Hours Award Date: April 2010  Magnetic reconnection
drives the most dramatic, explosive energy releasing processes
in the solar system: solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
These violent events rapidly convert huge amounts of stored
magnetic energy into heat and kinetic energy. An X-class solar
flare can release up to 6 x 10**25 Joules of energy in less than
an hour. This energy release is comparable to tens of millions
of atomic bombs exploding simultaneously. The same process
occurs through current disruptions on smaller scales in
laboratory devices seeking to magneticall