A Distributed Algebra System for Time Integration on Parallel Computers

Abstract: We present a distributed algebra system for efficient and compact implementation of numerical time integration schemes on parallel computers and graphics processing units (GPU). The software implementation combines the time integration library Odeint from Boost with the OpenFPM framework for scalable scientific computing. Implementing multi-stage, multi-step, or adaptive time integration methods in distributed-memory parallel codes or on GPUs is challenging. The present algebra system addresses this by making the time integration methods from Odeint available in a concise template-expression language for numerical simulations distributed and parallelized using OpenFPM. This allows using state-of-the-art time integration schemes, or switching between schemes, by changing one line of code, while maintaining parallel scalability. This enables scalable time integration with compact code and facilitates rapid rewriting and deployment of simulation algorithms. We benchmark the present software for exponential and sigmoidal dynamics and present an application example to the 3D Gray-Scott reaction-diffusion problem on both CPUs and GPUs in only 60 lines of code.