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Bonsai-SPH: A GPU accelerated astrophysical Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics code

by Jeroen Bédorf, Simon Portegies Zwart

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Submission summary

Authors (as registered SciPost users): Jeroen Bédorf
Submission information
Preprint Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.07439v1  (pdf)
Date submitted: 2019-09-20 02:00
Submitted by: Bédorf, Jeroen
Submitted to: SciPost Physics
Ontological classification
Academic field: Astronomy
Specialties:
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Approach: Computational

Abstract

We present the smoothed-particle hydrodynamics simulation code, Bonsai-SPH, which is a continuation of our previously developed gravity-only hierarchical $N$-body code (called Bonsai). The code is optimized for Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) accelerators which enables researchers to take advantage of these powerful computational resources. Bonsa-SPH produces simulation results comparable with state-of-the-art, CPU based, codes, but using an order of magnitude less computation time. The code is freely available online and the details are described in this work.

Current status:
Has been resubmitted

Reports on this Submission

Report 1 by Mark Vogelsberger on 2020-1-1 (Invited Report)

  • Cite as: Mark Vogelsberger, Report on arXiv:1909.07439v1, delivered 2020-01-01, doi: 10.21468/SciPost.Report.1425

Strengths

1 - The paper presents a very clear description of the SPH implementation in Bonsai-SPH.

2 - The methods and test problems are clearly laid out.

3 - The figures are very polished.

Weaknesses

1 - It would be nice to see some small scientific application problems in the paper beyond the test problems. Maybe the authors can add something along these lines?

2 - The paper does not detail how the code performs on parallel problems. Can the authors add a figure demonstrating well parallel processing works on multiple GPUs?

3 - The last years have seen various novel SPH implementations. It would be good if the introduction could discuss some of those. The authors should also discuss a bit more in detail the advantages and disadvantages of SPH compared to other techniques.

Report

The paper "Bonsai-SPH: A GPU accelerated astrophysical Smoothed
Particle Hydrodynamics code" by Bedorf and Zwart presents the smoothed-particle hydrodynamics simulation code, Bonsai-SPH,
which is a continuation of the gravity-only hierarchical N-body code Bonsai. The code is optimized for GPU accelerators. The authors demonstrate that Bonsai-SPH produces simulation results comparable
with state-of-the-art, CPU based, codes, but using an order of magnitude less
computation time.

Overall this paper presents a concise and clear description of the methods and test problems. There are a few points where the authors could expand the paper slightly. I discuss those under 'weaknesses'. It would be nice to see some of these suggestions being implemented by the authors. However, this is not a requirement since the paper is in its current form already publishable.

Requested changes

1 - Add some small scientific application at the end that goes beyond the pure test problems.

2 - Discuss in more depth the parallel aspects of the code.

3 - Extend the intro by a more detailed review of recent efforts in SPH implementations and also discuss in more detail the advantages and disadvantages of SPH.

  • validity: high
  • significance: high
  • originality: good
  • clarity: top
  • formatting: excellent
  • grammar: excellent

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