Overview of ILDG

Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) is the standard theory describing the strong nuclear force and the interactions of quarks and gluons. Lattice QCD is the numerical study of QCD using Monte Carlo simulations of discretized models of QCD. Lattice QCD simulations require long running simulations on large supercomputers.

The International Lattice Data Grid (ILDG) project was instigated in 2002 to enable sharing of lattice QCD data files by research groups around the world, including the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, and Australia.

The ILDG has defined standard data formats, metadata and interfaces to data access services that enable a number of widely distributed data repositories to function as a global federated data repository.