Accelerating NBODY6 with a graphics processing unit-enabled Particle-Particle Particle-Tree scheme. Issue 2 (27th October 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Arnold, Anthony D; Baumgardt, Holger; Wang, Long
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 509:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 2075
• Page End: 2083
• Publication Date: 2021-10-27
• Subjects: globular clusters: general -- gravitation -- methods: numerical -- software: simulations; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab3090
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We describe a modified version of the nbody6 code for simulating star clusters which greatly improves computational efficiency while sacrificing little in the way of accuracy. The distant force calculator is replaced by a graphics processing unit-enabled Barnes–Hut code, and integration is done with a standard leap frog scheme. Short-range forces continue to use the CPU-based fourth-order Hermite predictor-corrector scheme of nbody6 . Our code outperforms nbody6 for systems with more than 3 × 10 5 particles and runs more than a factor 2 faster for systems of 10 6 particles with similar energy conservation. Our code should be useful for simulating realistic dense stellar clusters, such as globular clusters or galactic nuclei.