2,328 research outputs found
Multi-GPU maximum entropy image synthesis for radio astronomy
The maximum entropy method (MEM) is a well known deconvolution technique in
radio-interferometry. This method solves a non-linear optimization problem with
an entropy regularization term. Other heuristics such as CLEAN are faster but
highly user dependent. Nevertheless, MEM has the following advantages: it is
unsupervised, it has a statistical basis, it has a better resolution and better
image quality under certain conditions. This work presents a high performance
GPU version of non-gridding MEM, which is tested using real and simulated data.
We propose a single-GPU and a multi-GPU implementation for single and
multi-spectral data, respectively. We also make use of the Peer-to-Peer and
Unified Virtual Addressing features of newer GPUs which allows to exploit
transparently and efficiently multiple GPUs. Several ALMA data sets are used to
demonstrate the effectiveness in imaging and to evaluate GPU performance. The
results show that a speedup from 1000 to 5000 times faster than a sequential
version can be achieved, depending on data and image size. This allows to
reconstruct the HD142527 CO(6-5) short baseline data set in 2.1 minutes,
instead of 2.5 days that takes a sequential version on CPU.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure
Swimmer-tracer scattering at low Reynolds number
Understanding the stochastic dynamics of tracer particles in active fluids is
important for identifying the physical properties of flow generating objects
such as colloids, bacteria or algae. Here, we study both analytically and
numerically the scattering of a tracer particle in different types of
time-dependent, hydrodynamic flow fields. Specifically, we compare the tracer
motion induced by an externally driven colloid with the one generated by
various self-motile, multi-sphere swimmers. Our results suggest that force-free
swimmers generically induce loop-shaped tracer trajectories. The specific
topological structure of these loops is determined by the hydrodynamic
properties of the microswimmer. Quantitative estimates for typical experimental
conditions imply that the loops survive on average even if Brownian motion
effects are taken into account.Comment: 14 pages, to appear in Soft Matte
GRMHD simulations of visibility amplitude variability for Event Horizon Telescope images of Sgr A*
Synthesis imaging of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way, Sgr A*,
with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) rests on the assumption of a stationary
image. We explore the limitations of this assumption using high-cadence GRMHD
simulations of Sgr A*. We employ analytic models that capture the basic
characteristics of the images to understand the origin of the variability in
the simulated visibility amplitudes. We find that, in all simulations, the
visibility amplitudes for baselines oriented perpendicular to the spin axis of
the black hole typically decrease smoothly over baseline lengths that are
comparable to those of the EHT. On the other hand, the visibility amplitudes
for baselines oriented parallel to the spin axis show significant structure
with one or more minima. This suggests that fitting EHT observations with
geometric models will lead to reasonably accurate determination of the
orientation of the black-hole on the plane of the sky. However, in the
disk-dominated models, the locations and depths of the minima in the visibility
amplitudes depend primarily on the width and asymmetry of the crescent-like
images and are highly variable. In the jet-dominated models, the locations of
the minima are determined by the separation of the two image components but
their depths depend primarily on the relative brightness of the two components
and are also variable. This suggests that using time-independent models to
infer additional black-hole parameters, such as the shadow size or the spin
magnitude, will be severely affected by the variability of the accretion flow.Comment: replaced to match published version, new figure added, results
unchange
Variability in GRMHD simulations of Sgr A: Implications for EHT closure phase observations
The observable quantities that carry the most information regarding the
structures of the images of black holes in the interferometric observations
with the Event Horizon Telescope are the closure phases along different
baseline triangles. We use long time span, high cadence, GRMHD+radiative
transfer models of Sgr A to investigate the expected variability of closure
phases in such observations. We find that, in general, closure phases along
small baseline triangles show little variability, except in the cases when one
of the triangle vertices crosses one of a small regions of low visibility
amplitude. The closure phase variability increases with the size of the
baseline triangle, as larger baselines probe the small-scale structures of the
images, which are highly variable. On average, the jet-dominated MAD models
show less closure phase variability than the disk-dominated SANE models, even
in the large baseline triangles, because the images from the latter are more
sensitive to the turbulence in the accretion flow. Our results suggest that
image reconstruction techniques need to explicitly take into account the
closure phase variability, especially if the quality and quantity of data allow
for a detailed characterization of the nature of variability. This also implies
that, if image reconstruction techniques that rely on the assumption of a
static image are utilized, regions of the space that show a high level of
variability will need to be identified and excised.Comment: submitted to apj. 12 pages, 12 figure
Efficient Many-Light Rendering of Scenes with Participating Media
We present several approaches based on virtual lights that aim at capturing the light transport without compromising quality, and while preserving the elegance and efficiency of many-light rendering. By reformulating the integration scheme, we obtain two numerically efficient techniques; one tailored specifically for interactive, high-quality lighting on surfaces, and one for handling scenes with participating media
Real-Time Volumetric Shadows using 1D Min-Max Mipmaps
Light scattering in a participating medium is responsible for several important effects we see in the natural world. In the presence of occluders, computing single scattering requires integrating the illumination scattered towards the eye along the camera ray, modulated by the visibility towards the light at each point. Unfortunately, incorporating volumetric shadows into this integral, while maintaining real-time performance, remains challenging.
In this paper we present a new real-time algorithm for computing volumetric shadows in single-scattering media on the GPU. This computation requires evaluating the scattering integral over the intersections of camera rays with the shadow map, expressed as a 2D height field. We observe that by applying epipolar rectification to the shadow map, each camera ray only travels through a single row of the shadow map (an epipolar slice), which allows us to find the visible segments by considering only 1D height fields. At the core of our algorithm is the use of an acceleration structure (a 1D minmax mipmap) which allows us to quickly find the lit segments for all pixels in an epipolar slice in parallel. The simplicity of this data structure and its traversal allows for efficient implementation using only pixel shaders on the GPU
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