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.