Advances in petascale kinetic plasma simulation with VPIC and Roadrunner

Abstract

VPIC [1], a first-principles 3d electromagnetic charge-conserving relativistic kinetic particle-in-cell code, was recently adapted to run on Los Alamos's Roadrunner [2], the first supercomputer to break a petaflop (10 15 floating point operations per second) in the TOP500 supercomputer performance rankings. [3] We summarize VPIC's modeling capabilities, VPIC's optimization techniques and Roadrunner's computational characteristics. We then discuss three applications enabled by VPIC's unprecedented performance on Roadrunner: modeling laser plasma interaction in upcoming inertial confinement fusion experiments at the National Ignition Facility, modeling short-pulse laser GeV ion acceleration and modeling reconnection in space and laboratory plasmas. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.