Generation of microlensing magnification patterns with high performance computing techniques

Abstract

The use of high performance computing techniques has not reached the level of simplicity needed to allow their use by the average researcher. Interdisciplinary groups are still a necessity in many cases. We present the result of a collaboration between astrophysicists and computer science researchers as part of a project to develop a useful tool for astrophysics research. Three different parallelization tools, OpenMP, MPI and llc, are compared in order to determine which one is the most appropriate in terms of performance and ease-of-use. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.