Berlin 2018 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 31: Condensed Matter Simulations augmented by Advanced Statistical Methodologies II (joint session DY/CPP)
DY 31.2: Talk
Tuesday, March 13, 2018, 14:15–14:30, BH-N 128
Massively parallel multicanonical simulations — Jonathan Gross1, •Johannes Zierenberg2, Martin Weigel3, and Wolfhard Janke1 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Postfach 100920, D 04009 Leipzig, Germany — 2Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Am Fassberg 17, 37077 Göttingen, Germany, — 3Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, England
Generalized-ensemble Monte Carlo simulations such as the multicanonical method and similar techniques are among the most efficient approaches for simulations of systems undergoing discontinuous phase transitions or with rugged free-energy landscapes. As Markov chain methods, they are inherently serial computationally. It was demonstrated recently, however, that a combination of independent simulations that communicate weight updates at variable intervals allows for the efficient utilization of parallel computational resources for multicanonical simulations. Implementing this approach for the many-thread architecture provided by current generations of graphics processing units (GPUs), we show how it can be efficiently employed with of the order of 104 parallel walkers and beyond, thus constituting a versatile tool for Monte Carlo simulations in the era of massively parallel computing. We provide the fully documented source code for the approach applied to the paradigmatic example of the two-dimensional Ising model as starting point and reference for practitioners in the field.