ARCHER, a New Monte Carlo Software Tool for Emerging Heterogeneous Computing Environments

¹ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA
² Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA
³ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

^* Corresponding Author, E-mail: xug2@rpi.edu

Abstract

The Monte Carlo radiation transport community faces a number of challenges associated with peta- and exa-scale computing systems that rely increasingly on heterogeneous architectures involving hardware accelerators such as GPUs. Existing Monte Carlo codes and methods must be strategically upgraded to meet emerging hardware and software needs. In this paper, we describe the development of a software, called ARCHER (Accelerated Radiation-transport Computations in Heterogeneous EnviRonments), which is designed as a versatile testbed for future Monte Carlo codes. Preliminary results from five projects in nuclear engineering and medical physics are presented.