Optimistic Simulations of Physical Systems Using Reverse Computation

Abstract

Efficient computer simulation of complex physical phenomena has long been challenging due to their multiphysics and multiscale nature. In contrast to traditional time-stepped execution methods, the authors describe an approach using optimistic parallel discrete event simulation (PDES) and reverse computation techniques to execute plasma physics codes. They show that reverse computation-based optimistic parallel execution can significantly reduce the execution time of an example plasma simulation without requiring a significant amount of additional memory compared to conservative execution techniques. The authors describe an application-level reverse computation technique that is efficient and suitable for complex scientific simulations.