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N-Body Computational Methods

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Parallel Computing

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Synonyms

Particle dynamics; Particle methods

Definition

N-body computation refers to a class of simulation methods that model the behavior of a physical system using a set of discrete entities (e.g., atoms, astrophysical bodies, etc.) and a set of interactions among them (coupling potentials). These simulations are typically time dependent. In each timestep, attributes of the discrete entities are updated (typically force, acceleration, velocity, and position), and the process is repeated, to study spatiotemporal evolution of the system.

Discussion

Introduction

Many interesting physical problems can be modeled as the time-evolution of a set of interacting, classical objects (assumed to be point masses). The behavior of these particles is governed by Newton’s second law. A series of seminal efforts by, among other notables, Newton, Euler, Lagrange, Hamilton, Delaunay, and Sundman demonstrated the difficulty of analitically solving the problem for systems comprised of more than two...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, LWSN 3154G, 47906, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Ananth Y. Grama (Professor) & Hasan Aktulga (Dr.)

  2. Department of Physics, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Joseph Fogarty & Sagar Pandit (Dr.)

Authors
  1. Ananth Y. Grama
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  2. Joseph Fogarty
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  3. Hasan Aktulga
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  4. Sagar Pandit
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    David Padua

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Grama, A.Y., Fogarty, J., Aktulga, H., Pandit, S. (2011). N-Body Computational Methods. In: Padua, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Parallel Computing. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09766-4_97

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