GPU Accelerated optical light propagation in CORSIKA8

Discussion timeslot (ZOOM-Meeting): 16. July 2021 - 18:00
ZOOM-Meeting URL: https://icrc2021.desy.de/pf_access_abstracts
Corresponding Session: https://icrc2021-venue.desy.de/channel/Presenter-Forum-1-Evening-All-Categories/48
Abstract:
"Optical photons, created from fluorescence or Cherenkov emission in atmospheric cascades induced through high energetic cosmic rays are of major interest for several experiments. Experiments like CTA require a significant amount of computing time and funds for the simulation with CORSIKA 7.
Since individual photons don’t interact they can be simulated without any order. The traditional sequential approach is simple but leads to reduced utilization of modern hardware infrastructure. The calculations done on each photon have low complexity, compared to the other aspects of the simulation. This, as well as the fact that, besides information about the photon itself, nearly no additional data is needed, favors a data-parallel approach in which several photons are propagated concurrently. The new CORSIKA 8 framework enables the implementation and verification of these methods.
With the use of dedicated high parallel acceleration hardware like GPUs the possible benefits with this data-parallel approach are even higher."

Authors: Dominik Baack
Collaboration: CORSIKA-8

Indico-ID: 310
Proceeding URL: https://pos.sissa.it/395/705