Applications Parallel PIC plasma simulation through particle decomposition techniques B. Di Martino a , S. Briguglio b, * , G. Vlad b , P. Sguazzero c a Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, University of Naples ``Federico II'', Naples, Italy b Associazione Euratom-ENEA sulla Fusione, Centro Ricerche Frascati, C.P. 65, Via Enrico Fermi 45, I-00044 Frascati, Rome, Italy c IBM, Via Shanghai 53, I-00144 Rome, Italy Received 15 September 1998; received in revised form 19 January 2000; accepted 29 May 2000 Abstract Parallelization of a particle-in-cell PIC) code has been accomplished through a ``particle decomposition'' technique instead of the more usual ``domain decomposition'' one. The adopted technique requires a moderate eort in porting the code in parallel form and results in intrinsic load balancing and modest inter-processor communication. The resulting data par- allel implementation has been carried out within the High Performance Fortran HPF) framework, and tested on the IBM SP parallel system. The performance tests obtained con®rm the hypothesis of high eectiveness of the strategy, if targeted towards moderately parallel architectures. Optimal use of resources is also discussed with reference to a speci®c physics problem. Ó 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Plasma simulation; Particle-in-cell simulation; Particle decomposition; High Performance Fortran; High Performance Fortran extrinsic procedure 1. Introduction One of the main purposes of the theoretical investigation in the ®eld of magnetic-con®nement fusion is represented by the comprehension of the trans- port mechanisms which are responsible for the con®nement degradation of the plasma. www.elsevier.com/locate/parco Parallel Computing 27 2001) 295±314 * Corresponding author. Fax: +6-9400-5400. E-mail address: briguglio@frascati.enea.it S. Briguglio). 0167-8191/01/$ - see front matter Ó 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0167-819100)00098-3