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arXiv · 2509.15377

Accelerating Garfield++ with CUDA

T. Neep·K. Nikolopoulos·M. Slater
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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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T. Neep, K. Nikolopoulos, M. Slater. 2025-09-18. Accelerating Garfield++ with CUDA. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221%2F20%2F12%2Fp12019

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