Scientists from Moscow State University showed: complex calculations on a personal computer with efficiency not inferior to a supercomputer are possible

    A group of physicists from the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University demonstrated a method that allows calculating complex equations of quantum mechanics, for which powerful supercomputers are used today, on a simple personal computer. At the same time, the calculations done on a personal computer were able to be carried out faster. The article "Fast GPU-based calculations in few-body quantum scattering", which describes the principle and the results obtained, was published by the authors in one of the latest issues of the highly respected scientific publication Computer Physics Communications .

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    To solve the most complicated equations of quantum mechanics, solved up to this point with the help of powerful and expensive supercomputers, scientists from MV Lomonosov Moscow State University managed to use a personal computer with a graphic processor. According to the lead author of the work, Vladimir Kukulin, his group was able to demonstrate that a personal laboratory computer with specialized software coped with the tasks many times faster: in 15 minutes he completed the work that the supercomputer takes 2-3 days to complete.

    The equations mentioned above were formulated back in the 60s of the last century by the Russian mathematician Ludwig Faddeev and described the scattering process of several quantum particles, that is, they were a kind of quantum-mechanical analogue of the Newton three-body theory. Soon, these equations formed the basis of a whole field of quantum mechanics called "physics of low-particle systems."

    According to scientists associated with promising research in quantum mechanics, this area is of particular interest, and the main task facing them was to find ways to solve these equations. At the same time, because of the incredible complexity of the calculations, scientists were not able to get close to the finished goal for a long time. Only the emergence of supercomputers helped to break the situation and get closer to solving the task.

    A fundamentally different approach to computing was demonstrated by a group of researchers from the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University (D. V. Skobeltsin Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosov). The computational algorithm proposed by scientists was proposed to be launched on a laboratory personal computer equipped with an Nvidia graphic chip for game consoles. At the same time, according to the first author of the article, the head of the laboratory of the theory of the atomic nucleus, Professor Vladimir Kukulin, the processor used in the calculations does not pretend to be a premium segment and is freely sold in the store for $ 300-500.

    The key problem faced by those who try to solve the scattering equations of several quantum particles is to compile a “core” - a large-scale two-dimensional table of tens of millions of rows and columns. At the same time, each cell of such a nucleus, by itself, is the result of complex calculations. Such a table withstands a figurative comparison with a screen with hundreds of trillions of pixels, but it lends itself to construction using a powerful graphics processor. Using the software developed in Nvidia and programs of their own development, scientists were able to divide the calculations into 65 thousand threads, which together allowed to solve the problem.

    “We have achieved speeds that we ourselves did not expect,” Vladimir Kukulin shares his impressions. - The program works so that 260 million complex integrals on a desktop computer counts in three seconds. And no comparison with supercomputers! My colleague from the University of Tübingen, whose laboratory does the same, calculates using the BLUEGENE supercomputer, which is actually a very expensive pleasure. And what he achieves in two or three days, we do in 15 minutes, without spending a dime. ”

    The practical value of the proposed method of computing is that both GPUs of the required performance and software that allows to set and effectively solve problems of this scale have existed for a long time, but in the West no one used them for such calculations, preferring supercomputers.

    “In our opinion, this work opens up completely new paths in the analysis of nuclear and resonant chemical reactions,” says Vladimir Kukulin. - It can also be very useful for solving a large number of computational problems in plasma physics, geophysics, electrodynamics, medicine, and many other fields of science. We want to organize something like training courses, where researchers of various scientific fields from peripheral universities, who do not have access to supercomputers, could learn how to do the same thing on their personal computers that we did. ”

    Original publication on the page of the website of the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University
    Publication in Computer Physics Communications


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