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Implementation of a 3D plasma particle-in-cell code on a MIMD parallel computer

Journal Article · · Bulletin of the American Physical Society
OSTI ID:272816
; ;  [1]
  1. California Inst. of Technology, Pasadena, CA (United States); and others

A three-dimensional plasma particle-in-cell (PIC) code has been implemented on the Intel Delta MIMD parallel supercomputer using the General Concurrent PIC algorithm. The GCPIC algorithm uses a domain decomposition to divide the computation among the processors: A processor is assigned a subdomain and all the particles in it. Particles must be exchanged between processors as they move. Results are presented comparing the efficiency for 1-, 2- and 3-dimensional partitions of the three dimensional domain. This algorithm has been found to be very efficient even when a large fraction (e.g. 30%) of the particles must be exchanged at every time step. On the 512-node Intel Delta, up to 125 million particles have been pushed with an electrostatic push time of under 500 nsec/particle/time step.

OSTI ID:
272816
Report Number(s):
CONF-930557--
Journal Information:
Bulletin of the American Physical Society, Journal Name: Bulletin of the American Physical Society Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 38; ISSN BAPSA6; ISSN 0003-0503
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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