Ultrahigh performance three-dimensional electromagnetic relativistic kinetic plasma simulation

Journal Article · Thu May 15 04:00:00 EDT 2008 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2840133· OSTI ID:21120342

Bowers, K J; Albright, B J; Yin, L; Bergen, B; Kwan, T J. T. ^[1]

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1. Plasma Theory and Applications (X-1-PTA), Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS F699, P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)

The algorithms, implementation details, and applications of VPIC, a state-of-the-art first principles 3D electromagnetic relativistic kinetic particle-in-cell code, are discussed. Unlike most codes, VPIC is designed to minimize data motion, as, due to physical limitations (including the speed of light{exclamation_point}), moving data between and even within modern microprocessors is more time consuming than performing computations. As a result, VPIC has achieved unprecedented levels of performance. For example, VPIC can perform {approx}0.17 billion cold particles pushed and charge conserving accumulated per second per processor on IBM's Cell microprocessor--equivalent to sustaining Los Alamos's planned Roadrunner supercomputer at {approx}0.56 petaflop (quadrillion floating point operations per second). VPIC has enabled previously intractable simulations in numerous areas of plasma physics, including magnetic reconnection and laser plasma interactions; next generation supercomputers like Roadrunner will enable further advances.

• OSTI ID: 21120342
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 15; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ALGORITHMS
CALCULATION METHODS
IMPLEMENTATION
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
MICROPROCESSORS
PARTICLES
PERFORMANCE
PLASMA
PLASMA SIMULATION
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
SUPERCOMPUTERS
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS