Accelerating Garfield++ with CUDA

T. Neep; K. Nikolopoulos; M. Slater

doi:10.1088/1748-0221/20/12/p12019

Accelerating Garfield++ with CUDA

T. Neep^*
, K. Nikolopoulos
, M. Slater

^*Corresponding author for this work

Physics and Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Garfield++ is extensively used within the gaseous detector community for comprehensive detector simulations, supporting the full experimental life cycle from design to operation and calibration. The emergence of micro-pattern gaseous detectors has necessitated computationally intensive microscopic avalanche simulations. The acceleration of one of Garfield++'s most demanding algorithms, AvalancheMicroscopic, by porting it to graphics processing units using NVIDIA's CUDA framework is described. The modifications are integrated into the Garfield++ codebase and are accessible to end users with only minor adjustments to their existing code. Benchmark results demonstrate substantial speed-up, especially for high-gain avalanches involving thousands of electrons, thereby enabling more efficient and detailed detector simulations.

Original language	English
Article number	P12019
Number of pages	12
Journal	Journal of Instrumentation
Volume	20
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/20/12/p12019
Publication status	Published - 12 Dec 2025

Keywords

Gaseous detectors
Micropattern gaseous detectors (MSGC, GEM, THGEM, RETHGEM, MHSP, MICROPIC, MICROMEGAS, InGrid, etc)
Detector modelling and simulations II (electric fields, charge transport, multiplication and induction, pulse formation, electron emission, etc)
Simulation methods and programs

Access to Document

10.1088/1748-0221/20/12/p12019Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

NeepT2025AcceleratingFinal published version, 496 KBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

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3 Finished

Experimental Particle Physics Consolidated Grant 2022-25
Watson, A. (Co-Investigator), Charlton, D. (Co-Investigator), Goudzovski, E. (Co-Investigator), Nikolopoulos, K. (Co-Investigator), Watson, N. (Co-Investigator), Newman, P. (Principal Investigator), Watson, M. (Co-Investigator), Gonella, L. (Co-Investigator), Lazzeroni, C. (Co-Investigator) & Allport, P. (Co-Investigator)
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL
1/10/22 → 31/03/26
Project: Research Councils
GaGARin - Advanced Simulation Techniques for Gaseous Detectors: Application on Spherical Proportional Counters
Nikolopoulos, K. (Principal Investigator) & Neep, T. (Co-Investigator)
European Commission
1/04/22 → 31/03/24
Project: EU
Baskerville 2.0: Enhanced Provision for High End and On-Demand Users
Styles, I. (Principal Investigator)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council
4/01/22 → 3/05/22
Project: Research Councils
Baskerville: a national accelerated compute resource
Cai, B. (Co-Investigator) & Morris, A. (Principal Investigator)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council, Lenovo UK Limited
13/10/20 → 31/03/25
Project: Research Councils

Cite this

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title = "Accelerating Garfield++ with CUDA",

abstract = "Garfield++ is extensively used within the gaseous detector community for comprehensive detector simulations, supporting the full experimental life cycle from design to operation and calibration. The emergence of micro-pattern gaseous detectors has necessitated computationally intensive microscopic avalanche simulations. The acceleration of one of Garfield++'s most demanding algorithms, AvalancheMicroscopic, by porting it to graphics processing units using NVIDIA's CUDA framework is described. The modifications are integrated into the Garfield++ codebase and are accessible to end users with only minor adjustments to their existing code. Benchmark results demonstrate substantial speed-up, especially for high-gain avalanches involving thousands of electrons, thereby enabling more efficient and detailed detector simulations.",

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language = "English",

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T1 - Accelerating Garfield++ with CUDA

AU - Neep, T.

AU - Nikolopoulos, K.

AU - Slater, M.

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N2 - Garfield++ is extensively used within the gaseous detector community for comprehensive detector simulations, supporting the full experimental life cycle from design to operation and calibration. The emergence of micro-pattern gaseous detectors has necessitated computationally intensive microscopic avalanche simulations. The acceleration of one of Garfield++'s most demanding algorithms, AvalancheMicroscopic, by porting it to graphics processing units using NVIDIA's CUDA framework is described. The modifications are integrated into the Garfield++ codebase and are accessible to end users with only minor adjustments to their existing code. Benchmark results demonstrate substantial speed-up, especially for high-gain avalanches involving thousands of electrons, thereby enabling more efficient and detailed detector simulations.

AB - Garfield++ is extensively used within the gaseous detector community for comprehensive detector simulations, supporting the full experimental life cycle from design to operation and calibration. The emergence of micro-pattern gaseous detectors has necessitated computationally intensive microscopic avalanche simulations. The acceleration of one of Garfield++'s most demanding algorithms, AvalancheMicroscopic, by porting it to graphics processing units using NVIDIA's CUDA framework is described. The modifications are integrated into the Garfield++ codebase and are accessible to end users with only minor adjustments to their existing code. Benchmark results demonstrate substantial speed-up, especially for high-gain avalanches involving thousands of electrons, thereby enabling more efficient and detailed detector simulations.

KW - Gaseous detectors

KW - Micropattern gaseous detectors (MSGC, GEM, THGEM, RETHGEM, MHSP, MICROPIC, MICROMEGAS, InGrid, etc)

KW - Detector modelling and simulations II (electric fields, charge transport, multiplication and induction, pulse formation, electron emission, etc)

KW - Simulation methods and programs

U2 - 10.1088/1748-0221/20/12/p12019

DO - 10.1088/1748-0221/20/12/p12019

M3 - Article

SN - 1748-0221

VL - 20

JO - Journal of Instrumentation

JF - Journal of Instrumentation

IS - 12

M1 - P12019

ER -

Accelerating Garfield++ with CUDA

Abstract

Keywords

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Projects

Experimental Particle Physics Consolidated Grant 2022-25

GaGARin - Advanced Simulation Techniques for Gaseous Detectors: Application on Spherical Proportional Counters

Baskerville 2.0: Enhanced Provision for High End and On-Demand Users

Baskerville: a national accelerated compute resource

Cite this