124 research outputs found
A sparse octree gravitational N-body code that runs entirely on the GPU processor
We present parallel algorithms for constructing and traversing sparse octrees
on graphics processing units (GPUs). The algorithms are based on parallel-scan
and sort methods. To test the performance and feasibility, we implemented them
in CUDA in the form of a gravitational tree-code which completely runs on the
GPU.(The code is publicly available at:
http://castle.strw.leidenuniv.nl/software.html) The tree construction and
traverse algorithms are portable to many-core devices which have support for
CUDA or OpenCL programming languages. The gravitational tree-code outperforms
tuned CPU code during the tree-construction and shows a performance improvement
of more than a factor 20 overall, resulting in a processing rate of more than
2.8 million particles per second.Comment: Accepted version. Published in Journal of Computational Physics. 35
pages, 12 figures, single colum
GADGET: A code for collisionless and gasdynamical cosmological simulations
We describe the newly written code GADGET which is suitable both for
cosmological simulations of structure formation and for the simulation of
interacting galaxies. GADGET evolves self-gravitating collisionless fluids with
the traditional N-body approach, and a collisional gas by smoothed particle
hydrodynamics. Along with the serial version of the code, we discuss a parallel
version that has been designed to run on massively parallel supercomputers with
distributed memory. While both versions use a tree algorithm to compute
gravitational forces, the serial version of GADGET can optionally employ the
special-purpose hardware GRAPE instead of the tree. Periodic boundary
conditions are supported by means of an Ewald summation technique. The code
uses individual and adaptive timesteps for all particles, and it combines this
with a scheme for dynamic tree updates. Due to its Lagrangian nature, GADGET
thus allows a very large dynamic range to be bridged, both in space and time.
So far, GADGET has been successfully used to run simulations with up to 7.5e7
particles, including cosmological studies of large-scale structure formation,
high-resolution simulations of the formation of clusters of galaxies, as well
as workstation-sized problems of interacting galaxies. In this study, we detail
the numerical algorithms employed, and show various tests of the code. We
publically release both the serial and the massively parallel version of the
code.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures, replaced to match published version in New
Astronomy. For download of the code, see
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/gadget (new version 1.1 available
4.45 Pflops Astrophysical N-Body Simulation on K computer -- The Gravitational Trillion-Body Problem
As an entry for the 2012 Gordon-Bell performance prize, we report performance
results of astrophysical N-body simulations of one trillion particles performed
on the full system of K computer. This is the first gravitational trillion-body
simulation in the world. We describe the scientific motivation, the numerical
algorithm, the parallelization strategy, and the performance analysis. Unlike
many previous Gordon-Bell prize winners that used the tree algorithm for
astrophysical N-body simulations, we used the hybrid TreePM method, for similar
level of accuracy in which the short-range force is calculated by the tree
algorithm, and the long-range force is solved by the particle-mesh algorithm.
We developed a highly-tuned gravity kernel for short-range forces, and a novel
communication algorithm for long-range forces. The average performance on 24576
and 82944 nodes of K computer are 1.53 and 4.45 Pflops, which correspond to 49%
and 42% of the peak speed.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, Proceedings of Supercomputing 2012
(http://sc12.supercomputing.org/), Gordon Bell Prize Winner. Additional
information is http://www.ccs.tsukuba.ac.jp/CCS/eng/gbp201
N-body simulations of gravitational dynamics
We describe the astrophysical and numerical basis of N-body simulations, both
of collisional stellar systems (dense star clusters and galactic centres) and
collisionless stellar dynamics (galaxies and large-scale structure). We explain
and discuss the state-of-the-art algorithms used for these quite different
regimes, attempt to give a fair critique, and point out possible directions of
future improvement and development. We briefly touch upon the history of N-body
simulations and their most important results.Comment: invited review (28 pages), to appear in European Physics Journal Plu
Direct N-body Simulations
Special high-accuracy direct force summation N-body algorithms and their
relevance for the simulation of the dynamical evolution of star clusters and
other gravitating N-body systems in astrophysics are presented, explained and
compared with other methods. Other methods means here approximate physical
models based on the Fokker-Planck equation as well as other, approximate
algorithms to compute the gravitational potential in N-body systems. Questions
regarding the parallel implementation of direct ``brute force'' N-body codes
are discussed. The astrophysical application of the models to the theory of
relaxing rotating and non-rotating collisional star clusters is presented,
briefly mentioning the questions of the validity of the Fokker-Planck
approximation, the existence of gravothermal oscillations and of rotation and
primordial binaries.Comment: 32 pages, 13 figures, in press in Riffert, H., Werner K. (eds),
Computational Astrophysics, The Journal of Computational and Applied
Mathematics (JCAM), Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, 199
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