English

$\texttt{GPUmonty}$: A GPU-accelerated relativistic Monte Carlo radiative transfer code

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2026-04-15 v2

Abstract

We introduce GPUmonty\texttt{GPUmonty}, a CUDA/C-based Monte Carlo radiative transfer code accelerated using graphics processing units (GPUs). GPUmonty\texttt{GPUmonty} derives from the CPU-based code grmonty\texttt{grmonty} and offloads the most computationally expensive stages of the calculation -- superphoton generation, sampling, tracking, and scattering -- to the GPU. Whereas grmonty\texttt{grmonty} handles photons sequentially, GPUmonty\texttt{GPUmonty} processes large numbers of superphotons concurrently, leveraging the single-instruction, multiple-thread (SIMT) execution model of modern GPUs. Benchmarks demonstrate a speedup of about 12×12\times relative to the original CPU implementation on a single GPU, with runtime limited primarily by register pressure rather than compute or memory bandwidth saturation. We validate the implementation through analytic tests for a optically thin synchrotron sphere, as well as comparisons with igrmonty\texttt{igrmonty} for scattering synchrotron sphere and GRMHD simulation data. Relative errors remain below a percent level and convergence is consistent with the expected Ns1/2N_{\rm s}^{-1/2} Monte Carlo scaling. By significantly reducing computational costs, GPUmonty enables the extensive parameter space surveys and faster spectra modeling required to interpret horizon-scale observations of supermassive black holes. GPUmonty\texttt{GPUmonty} is publicly available under the GNU General Public License.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.13198,
  title  = {$\texttt{GPUmonty}$: A GPU-accelerated relativistic Monte Carlo radiative transfer code},
  author = {Pedro Naethe Motta and Rodrigo Nemmen and Abhishek V. Joshi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.13198},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

12 pages, 6 figures and 1 table. V2: Minor textual changes. Published in ApJ

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:35:45.876Z