Plenary Talks
Be Neutrinos – how seemingly insignificant ghost particles have changed the universe
Speaker : Ming-chung Chu
Neutrinos are the least interactive and understood among the known elementary particles. Some 10^14 solar neutrinos pass through your body every second, with no consequences. Surprisingly, such ghost-like particles play an important role in shaping the universe. I will discuss why neutrinos are essential for explosions of massive stars – important for spreading of elements in the universe, and why we exist at all. I will also introduce neutrinos’ roles in the evolution of the universe, and a plan for Hong Kong researchers to measure neutrino properties using cosmological observation.
High Performance Computing – a Solution to Modern Problems
Speaker : KWOK Sum Yin, et. al.
High Performance Computing (HPC) plays a pivotal role in domains of modern scientific research and engineering. The ability to process data and perform complex calculations at high speed allows researchers to work on complex problems such as weather, astrophysics, genetics et cetera. The CUHK supercomputing team participated in the ASC Student Supercomputing Challenge, which is a competition on HPC, and worked on problems including super resolutions, climatic model CESM (Community Earth System Model) and benchmarking. We would like to promote HPC among students through sharing on our experience in the competition.
Earthquake activity induced by the extraction and storage of natural energy resources
Speaker : Teng-fong WONG
The injection and extraction of fluid and gas perturb the stress field and pore pressure in the crust, which may induce and trigger earthquakes. In the past decade, a number of such induced earthquakes have been reported in association with the storage of fluid in the vicinity of active faults. A fundamental understanding of this phenomenon requires interdisciplinary efforts in seismology, geodesy and rock physics. We have an ongoing collaboration with China Earthquake Administration near one of China’s largest repositories of natural gas in Hutubi, Xinjiang, to monitor the earthquake activity and probe its connection with the cyclic extraction and withdrawal of gas in the past five years. A synopsis of the project, scientific results and insights into earthquake physics will be presented.