Performance enhancement of MAGIC FDTD-PIC plasma-wave simulations using GPU processing

Summary form only given. Present day computers equipped with powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) show considerable promise of increased performance for the electromagnetic (EM) modeler. In order to determine the degree of performance gain achievable for electro-energetic physics computations, the MAGIC EM finite difference-time domain (FDTD) particle-in-cell (PIC) plasma code is undergoing testing for parallel speedup on typical large scale plasma wave EM calculations using GPU processing. The results of the tests are expected to be of great interest to the EM community because MAGIC is widely employed and implements the methods common to many large scale applications. The performance data obtained will quantify the benefits of GPUs, and aid in selecting the proper system including GPUs potentially critical to effectiveness with EM/plasma codes where calculation times often run into days due to small zone and time step requirements. GPUs promise a relatively low cost boost leveraging the vast development driven by the computer game industry.