FARGO3D: A new GPU-oriented MHD code

TL;DR

FARGO3D is a GPU-optimized magnetohydrodynamics code designed for protoplanetary disk simulations, featuring advanced algorithms, parallelization, and ease of use for CPU and GPU computing.

Contribution

The paper introduces FARGO3D, a novel GPU-oriented MHD code with detailed implementation, enabling efficient simulations of planet-disk interactions and broad accessibility.

Findings

Achieves significant speed-up on GPUs compared to CPUs.

Successfully preserves magnetic divergence-free condition.

Demonstrates versatility with various test problems.

Abstract

We present the FARGO3D code, recently publicly released. It is a magnetohydrodynamics code developed with special emphasis on protoplanetary disks physics and planet-disk interactions, and parallelized with MPI. The hydrodynamics algorithms are based on finite difference upwind, dimensionally split methods. The magnetohydrodynamics algorithms consist of the constrained transport method to preserve the divergence-free property of the magnetic field to machine accuracy, coupled to a method of characteristics for the evaluation of electromotive forces and Lorentz forces. Orbital advection is implemented, and an N-body solver is included to simulate planets or stars interacting with the gas. We present our implementation in detail and present a number of widely known tests for comparison purposes. One strength of FARGO3D is that it can run on both "Graphical Processing Units" (GPUs) or "Central Processing unit" (CPUs), achieving large speed up with respect to CPU cores. We describe our implementation choices, which allow a user with no prior knowledge of GPU programming to develop new routines for the CPU, and have them translated automatically for the GPU.