Adaptation and performance of the Cartesian coordinates fast multipole method for nanomagnetic simulations

Abstract

An implementation of the fast multiple method (FMM) is performed for magnetic systems with long-ranged dipolar interactions. Expansion in spherical harmonics of the original FMM is replaced by expansion of polynomials in Cartesian coordinates, which is considerably simpler. Under open boundary conditions, an expression for multipole moments of point dipoles in a cell is derived. These make the program appropriate for nanomagnetic simulations, including magnetic nanoparticles and ferrofluids. The performance is optimized in terms of cell size and parameter set (expansion order and opening angle) and the trade off between computing time and accuracy is quantitatively studied. A rule of thumb is proposed to decide the appropriate average number of dipoles in the smallest cells, and an optimal choice of parameter set is suggested. Finally, the superiority of Cartesian coordinate FMM is demonstrated by comparison to spherical harmonics FMM and FFT.