GENGA II: GPU planetary N-body simulations with non-Newtonian forces and high number of particles

TL;DR

GENGA II enhances GPU-based planetary N-body simulations by scaling up particle numbers, incorporating non-Newtonian forces, and adding new tools, enabling more accurate and extensive modeling of planetary formation processes.

Contribution

The paper introduces significant improvements to GENGA, including better scalability for large particle numbers, integration of non-Newtonian forces, and new simulation tools for planetary formation modeling.

Findings

Simulated planet formation with over 65,000 particles.

Achieved simulations over billions of years on modern GPUs.

Enhanced modeling of non-Newtonian forces and collision processes.

Abstract

We present recent updates and improvements of the graphical processing unit (GPU) N-body code GENGA. Modern state-of-the-art simulations of planet formation require the use of a very high number of particles to accurately resolve planetary growth and to quantify the effect of dynamical friction. At present the practical upper limit is in the range of 30,000 - 60,000 fully interactive particles; possibly a little more on the latest GPU devices. While the original hybrid symplectic integration method has difficulties to scale up to these numbers, we have improved the integration method by i) introducing higher level changeover functions and ii) code improvements to better use the most recent GPU hardware efficiently for such large simulations. We added treatments of non-Newtonian forces such as general relativity, tidal interaction, rotational deformation, the Yarkovsky effect, and Poynting-Robertson drag, as well as a new model to treat virtual collisions of small bodies in the solar system. We added new tools to GENGA, such as semi-active test particles that feel more massive bodies but not each other, a more accurate collision handling and a real-time openGL visualization. We present example simulations, including a 1.5 billion year terrestrial planet formation simulation that initially started with 65,536 particles, a 3.5 billion year simulation without gas giants starting with 32,768 particles, the evolution of asteroid fragments in the solar system, and the planetesimal accretion of a growing Jupiter simulation. GENGA runs on modern NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.