Parallelization, processor communication and error analysis in lattice kinetic Monte Carlo

Giorgos Arampatzis, Markos A. Katsoulakis, Petr Plechac

Published 2012-08-05Version 1

In this paper we study from a numerical analysis perspective the Fractional Step Kinetic Monte Carlo (FS-KMC) algorithms proposed in [1] for the parallel simulation of spatially distributed particle systems on a lattice. FS-KMC are fractional step algorithms with a time-stepping window $\Delta t$, and as such they are inherently partially asynchronous since there is no processor communication during the period $\Delta t$. In this contribution we primarily focus on the error analysis of FS-KMC algorithms as approximations of conventional, serial kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC). A key aspect of our analysis relies on emphasising a goal-oriented approach for suitably defined macroscopic observables (e.g., density, energy, correlations, surface roughness), rather than focusing on strong topology estimates for individual trajectories. One of the key implications of our error analysis is that it allows us to address systematically the processor communication of different parallelization strategies for KMC by comparing their (partial) asynchrony, which in turn is measured by their respective fractional time step $\Delta t$ for a prescribed error tolerance.