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12.8.1 Introduction

Two basic types of simulations exist for modelling systems of many particles: grid-based (point particles indirectly interacting with one another through the potential calculated from equivalent particle densities on a mesh) and particle-based (point particles directly interacting with one another through potentials at their positions calculated from the other particles in the system). Grid-based solvers traditionally model continuum problems, such as fluid and gas systems like the one described in Section 9.3, and mixed particle-continuum systems. Particle-based solvers find more use modeling discrete systems such as stars within galaxies, as discussed in Section 12.4, or other rarefied gases. Many different physical systems, including electromagnetic  interactions, gravitational interactions, and fluid vortex interactions all are governed by Poisson's Equation:

for the gravitational case. To evolve N particles in time, the exact solution to the problem requires calculating the force contribution to each particle from all other particles at each time step:

The operation count is prohibitive for simulations of more than a few thousand particles commonly required to represent astrophysical and vortex configurations of interest.

One method of decreasing the operation count utilizes grid-based solvers which translate the particle problem into a continuum problem by interpolating the particles onto a mesh representing density and then solve the discretized equation. Initial implementations were based upon fast fourier transform (FFT)  and cloud-in-cell (CIC) methods which can calculate the potential of a mass distribution on a three-dimensional grid with axes of length M in operations, but at the cost of lower accuracy in the force resolution. All of these algorithms are discussed extensively by Hockney and Eastwood [Hockney:81a].

A newer type of grid-based solver for discretized equations classified as a multilevel or multigrid  method has been in development for over a decade [Brandt:77a], [Briggs:87b]. Frequently, the algorithm utilizes a hierarchy of rectangular meshes on which a traditional relaxation scheme may be applied, but multiscale  methods have expanded beyond any particular type of solver or even grids, per se. Relaxation methods effectively damp oscillatory error modes whose wave numbers are comparable to the grid size, but most of the iterations are spent propagating smooth, low-wave number corrections throughout the system. Multigrid utilizes this property by resampling the low-wave number residuals onto secondary, lower-resolution meshes, thereby shifting the error to higher wave numbers comparable to the grid spacing where relaxation is effective. The corrections computed on the lower-resolution meshes are interpolated back onto the original finer mesh and the combined solutions from the various mesh levels determine the result.

Many grid-based methods for particle problems have incorporated some form of local direct-force calculation, such as the particle-particle/particle-mesh (PPPM) method or the method of local corrections (MLC), to correct the force on a local subset of particles. The grid is used to propagate the far-field component of the force while direct-force calculations provide the near-field component either completely or as a correction to the ``external'' potential. The computational cost strongly depends on the criterion used to distinguish near-field objects from far-field objects. Extremely inhomogeneous systems of densely clustered particles can deteriorate to nearly if most of the particles are considered neighbors requiring direct force computation.

A class of alternative techniques which have been implemented with great success utilize methods to efficiently calculate and combine the coefficients of an analytic approximation to the particle forces using spherical harmonic multipole expansions in three dimensions.

where the multipole moments

are the disjoint spatial regions, and is the Green's function. Instead of integrating G over the volume , one may compute the potential (and, in a similar manner, the gradient) at any position by calculating the multipole moments which characterize the density distribution in each region, evaluating G and its derivatives at , and summing over indices. This algorithm is described more extensively in Section 12.4.

Not only does spatially sorting  the particles into a tree-type data structure provide an efficient database for individual and collective particle information [Samet:90a], but the various algorithms require and utilize the hierarchical grouping of particles and combined information to calculate the force on each particle from the multipole moments in operations or less.

Implementations for three-dimensional problems frequently use an oct-tree-a  cube divided into eight octants of equal spatial volume which contain subcubes similarly divided. The cubes continue to nest until, depending on the algorithm, the cube contains either zero or one particles or a few particles of equal number to the other ``terminal'' cells. Binary trees which subdivide the volume with planes chosen to evenly divide the number of particles instead of the space also have been used [Appel:85a]; a single bifurcation separates two particles spaced arbitrarily close together while the oct-tree would require arbitrarily many subcubes refining one particular region. This approach may produce fewer artifacts by not imposing an arbitrary rectangular structure onto the simulation, but construction is more difficult and information about each cut must be stored and used throughout the computation.

Initial implementations for both grid-based and multipole techniques normally span the entire volume with a uniform resolution net in which to catch the result. While this is adequate for homogeneous problems, it either wastes computational effort and storage or sacrifices accuracy for problems which exhibit clustering and structure. Many of the algorithms described above provide enough flexibility to allow adaptive implementations which can conform to complicated particle distribution or accuracy constraints.



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Guy Robinson
Wed Mar 1 10:19:35 EST 1995