Dear MilkyWay@home volunteers, I want to first thank all of you for helping us study the Milky Way galaxy by donating your CPU and GPU cycles to our project. Some of you have also contributed your computational expertise, or contributed cash or GPU cards to our projects. We appreciate all of these gifts. MilkyWay@home CPU/GPU cycles have contributed to defining the distribution of stars in the Sagittarius dwarf tidal stream. Stars in this stream were pulled off of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, which is in orbit around the Milky Way, by the Milky Way's gravity. In addition, novel computational techniques have been developed for asynchronous parameter searches using a heterogeneous volunteer network. Over the next year we plan to modify MilkyWay@home to measure the overall distribution of stars in the Milky Way halo. The magnitude of your generosity has made it possible for us to dream bigger dreams. We are starting to transform MilkyWay@home to do n-body simulations of several dwarf galaxy tidal disruptions at the same time. We can then change the model parameters for the Milky Way's gravity and for the properties of the dwarf galaxies so that they match the properties of actual tidal streams in the Milky Way. This is a big job and a new field, and we would not be able to contemplate doing this if you were not volunteering the equivalent of one of the largest supercomputers in the world to this task. Presently, we have taken only the first steps towards this, by simulating the disruption of a single dwarf galaxy and varying only the parameters of the dwarf itself. We have quite a lot to learn in developing the correct techniques for solving this problem, but if we are successful we will eventually find out how much mass (mostly dark matter) is in the Milky Way, and how it is distributed in space. A year ago, I was successful in getting an NSF grant funded that supports my astronomy research on the Milky Way, and a significant part of that grant was justified by the use of your volunteer computing cycles. We are still seeking grant funding that will support the computer science research side of MilkyWay@home. A few years ago when we were stretched for funding between grants, we raised about $7000 in private donations, most of which were from MilkyWay@home volunteers. The remaining portion of this funding is currently being used on summer salary to support Matthew Arsenault, who is working on converting our n-body code so that it will run on GPUs. Matthew recently received his BS degree from RPI, and has been working on MilkyWay@home code for more than a year. He will be entering our PhD program this fall. He will be supported as a teaching assistant during the coming school year, but I am again turning to the volunteers to help me support him in summer 2012. Currently, I do not have funding to guarantee that I can support him. The cost of a graduate student summer salary plus institutional overhead is about $10,000. Of course, we can always do more with extra funding, but students are my top priority. Matthew has done a fabulous job implementing our current n-body simulations. We are therefore launching the following "thank you" and fundraising campaign. On September 1, 2011, we will run MilkyWay@home with double credit. Hopefully, this will at least make up for some of the credit lost when MilkyWay@home was not operational for software, hardware, or air conditioning emergencies. We understand that these have been frustrating to some users, but be assured that they were much more frustrating for us. In addition, we will run MilkyWay@home with double credit for one additional day for every $500 raised between now and September 1, 2011. Donations can be made with paypal or credit card online at:
http://www.dudleyobservatory.org/Mil...2.htmlPayments by check can be made out to Dudley Observatory and mailed to: Dudley Observatory, 107 Nott Terrace, Suite 201, Schenectady, NY 12308, with MilkyWay@home in the comments line of the check, or with a letter that explains that the donation is to MilkyWay@home. For donations in other forms, you may contact me directly (heidi@rpi.edu). The donations are tax deductible, and you will receive a letter from Dudley Observatory that can be used for tax purposes. Donations will be used to fund graduate or undergraduate students, travel, publication, materials, or equipment costs related to Milky Way research and education. For gifts over $1000, donors may specify a person, family, or organization to be acknowledged in research publications which are partially supported by this donation, and to receive a signed, printed copy of the publication. Again, we thank you for your support of our research project. We have been overwhelmed by the number of people who are willing to contribute.Sincerely,Prof. Heidi Newberg
