Real-time, fast radio transient searches with GPU de-dispersion

Journal article

The identification, and subsequent discovery, of fast radio transients through blind-search surveys requires a large amount of processing power, in worst cases scaling as $\mathcal{O}(N^3)$. For this reason, survey data are generally processed offline, using high-performance computing architectures or hardware-based designs. In recent years, graphics processing units have been extensively used for numerical analysis and scientific simulations, especially after the introduction of new high-level application programming interfaces. Here we show how GPUs can be used for fast transient discovery in real-time. We present a solution to the problem of de-dispersion, providing performance comparisons with a typical computing machine and traditional pulsar processing software. We describe the architecture of a real-time, GPU-based transient search machine. In terms of performance, our GPU solution provides a speed-up factor of between 50 and 200, depending on the parameters of the search.

Authors: Magro, A; Karastergiou, A; Salvini, S; Mort, B; Dulwich, F

• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Publication date: 2011-07-13
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19426.x
• EISSN: 1365-2966
• ISSN: 0035-8711
• Keywords: astro-ph.IM