SpECTRE: A Task-based Discontinuous Galerkin Code for Relativistic Astrophysics

TL;DR

SpECTRE is a new relativistic astrophysics code that combines high-order discontinuous Galerkin methods with task-based parallelism to efficiently solve complex problems like neutron star mergers on supercomputers.

Contribution

It introduces a novel combination of discontinuous Galerkin methods with task-based parallelism tailored for relativistic astrophysics simulations.

Findings

Achieves high accuracy in shock capturing and smooth regions

Demonstrates excellent scalability on supercomputers

Successfully solves challenging benchmark problems

Abstract

We introduce a new relativistic astrophysics code, SpECTRE, that combines a discontinuous Galerkin method with a task-based parallelism model. SpECTRE's goal is to achieve more accurate solutions for challenging relativistic astrophysics problems such as core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers. The robustness of the discontinuous Galerkin method allows for the use of high-resolution shock capturing methods in regions where (relativistic) shocks are found, while exploiting high-order accuracy in smooth regions. A task-based parallelism model allows efficient use of the largest supercomputers for problems with a heterogeneous workload over disparate spatial and temporal scales. We argue that the locality and algorithmic structure of discontinuous Galerkin methods will exhibit good scalability within a task-based parallelism framework. We demonstrate the code on a wide variety of challenging benchmark problems in (non)-relativistic (magneto)-hydrodynamics. We demonstrate the code's scalability including its strong scaling on the NCSA Blue Waters supercomputer up to the machine's full capacity of 22,380 nodes using 671,400 threads.