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arXiv:1411.5234astro-ph.IM

Using Graphics Processing Units to solve the classical N-body problem in physics and astrophysics

Mario Spera

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Abstract

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) can speed up the numerical solution of various problems in astrophysics including the dynamical evolution of stellar systems; the performance gain can be more than a factor 100 compared to using a Central Processing Unit only. In this work I describe some strategies to speed up the classical $N$-body problem using GPUs. I show some features of the $N$-body code HiGPUs as template code. In this context, I also give some hints on the parallel implementation of a regularization method and I introduce the code HiGPUs-R. Although the main application of this work concerns astrophysics, some of the presented techniques are of general validity and can be applied to other branches of physics such as electrodynamics and QCD.

arXiv comments
6 pages, 3 figures, to be published in the proccedings "GPU Computing in High Energy Physics", September 10-12, 2014, Pisa, Italy
Journal reference
DOI
Subjects
astro-ph.IMInstrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics physics.comp-phComputational Physics

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    • Tangential to his point, but N-Body simulations like this are almost a perfect fit for GPU computation. The power of modern GPU's is astonishing. It's probable that he could get his "about a day" calculations down to a few minutes, or alternatively, keep the runtime the same and…

      nkurzView on HNParent context

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