A

Swift : a modern highly parallel gravity and smoothed particle hydrodynamics solver for astrophysical and cosmological applications

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 530, pp. 2378–2419

Abstract

ABSTRACT Numerical simulations have become one of the key tools used by theorists in all the fields of astrophysics and cosmology. The development of modern tools that target the largest existing computing systems and exploit state-of-the-art numerical methods and algorithms is thus crucial. In this paper, we introduce the fully open-source highly-parallel, versatile, and modular coupled hydrodynamics, gravity, cosmology, and galaxy-formation code Swift. The software package exploits hybrid shared- and distributed-memory task-based parallelism, asynchronous communications, and domain-decomposition algorithms based on balancing the workload, rather than the data, to efficiently exploit modern high-performance computing cluster architectures. Gravity is solved for using a fast-multipole-method, optionally coupled to a particle mesh solver in Fourier space to handle periodic volumes. For gas evolution, multiple modern flavours of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics are implemented. Swift also evolves neutrinos using a state-of-the-art particle-based method. Two complementary networks of sub-grid models for galaxy formation as well as extensions to simulate planetary physics are also released as part of the code. An extensive set of output options, including snapshots, light-cones, power spectra, and a coupling to structure finders are also included. We describe the overall code architecture, summarize the consistency and accuracy tests that were performed, and demonstrate the excellent weak-scaling performance of the code using a representative cosmological hydrodynamical problem with ≈300 billion particles. The code is released to the community alongside extensive documentation for both users and developers, a large selection of example test problems, and a suite of tools to aid in the analysis of large simulations run with Swift.

Authors 27

  1. Leiden University · Leiden Observatory

    Affiliation as printed

    Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

    Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University , PO Box 9506, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

  2. Durham University · Massachusetts Institute of Technology · University of Pennsylvania

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania , 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 , USA

    Department of Physics and Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, MA 02139 , USA

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  3. Durham University

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  4. University of Geneva · Durham University · École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Computer Science, Durham University , Upper Mountjoy Campus, Stockton Road, Durham , UK

    Laboratoire d’astrophysique, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , CH-1290 Sauverny , Switzerland

    Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève , Chemin Pegasi 51, CH-1290 Versoix , Switzerland

  5. University of Helsinki · Stockholm University · AlbaNova

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Physics, University of Helsinki , Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2, FI-00014 Helsinki , Finland

    The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University , Albanova University Center, SE-106 91 Stockholm , Sweden

    The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, Albanova University Center, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

  6. Leiden University · Ghent University · Leiden Observatory

    Affiliation as printed

    Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

    Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent , Krijgslaan 281, B-9000 Gent , Belgium

  7. Leiden University · Durham University · Leiden Observatory · École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

    Laboratoire d’astrophysique, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , CH-1290 Sauverny , Switzerland

    Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

  8. Leiden University · Leiden Observatory

    Affiliation as printed

    Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

  9. Sci-Tech Daresbury

    Affiliation as printed

    STFC Hartree Centre , Sci-Tech Daresbury, Warrington, WA4 4AD , UK

  10. Chinese University of Hong Kong · Durham University · University of Chicago

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The University of Chicago , Chicago, IL60637 , USA

    Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong , Shatin, Hong Kong , China

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  11. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · Université Paris Cité · Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives · Université Paris-Saclay · Astrophysique, Instrumentation et Modélisation · University of Amsterdam

    Affiliation as printed

    GRAPPA Institute, University of Amsterdam , Science Park 904, NL-1098 XH Amsterdam , the Netherland

    Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité , CEA, CNRS, AIM, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette , France

  12. Leiden University · Leiden Observatory

    Affiliation as printed

    Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

  13. Durham University

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  14. Google (Switzerland)

    Affiliation as printed

    Google AI Perception , Google Switzerland, CH-8002 Zurich , Switzerland

  15. ETH Zurich · École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

    Affiliation as printed

    ITS High Performance Computing, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich , CH-8092 Zürich , Switzerland

    Laboratoire d’astrophysique, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , CH-1290 Sauverny , Switzerland

  16. Durham University

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  17. Durham University

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  18. Ames Research Center · Durham University

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

    NASA Ames Research Center , Moffett Field, CA 94035 , USA

  19. Leiden University · Leiden Observatory

    Affiliation as printed

    Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

  20. Leiden University · University of Vienna

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna , Türkenschanzstrasse 17, 1180 Vienna , Austria

    Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University , PO Box 9506, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

  21. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

    Affiliation as printed

    Laboratoire d’astrophysique, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , CH-1290 Sauverny , Switzerland

  22. University of Sussex

    Affiliation as printed

    Astronomy Centre, University of Sussex , Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH , UK

  23. Durham University

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  24. Durham University

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE , UK

  25. Ghent University

    Affiliation as printed

    Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent , Krijgslaan 281, B-9000 Gent , Belgium

  26. University of Toronto

    Affiliation as printed

    SciNet HPC Consortium, University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, ON M5G 1M1 , Canada

  27. University of Bern · Leiden University · Royal Observatory · University of Edinburgh

    Affiliation as printed

    Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh , Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ , UK

    Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University , PO Box 9506, NL-2300 RA Leiden , the Netherlands

    Space Research and Planetary Sciences, Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern , Bern, 3012 , Switzerland

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References 249