This document relates to computation of particle interactions, including algorithms and hardware and software techniques that are applicable to such computation.
Simulation of multiple-body interactions (often called “N-body” problems) is useful in a number of problem areas including celestial dynamics and computational chemistry. Biomolecular or electrostatic particle interaction simulations complement experiments by providing a uniquely detailed picture of the interaction between particles in a system. An important issue in simulations is the simulation speed.
Determining the interaction between all pairs of bodies in the system by enumerating the pairs can be computationally intensive, and thus, alternate interaction schemes are often used. For example, all particles within a predefined radius of a particular particle are interacted with that particle while particles farther away are ignored. Special-purpose hardware has also been applied in order to reduce the overall computation time required for simulation.