Volume 544 - 43rd International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP2026) - Session Software and Computing
Evolving ATLAS Full Simulation: Performance Gains, Code Modernization, and GPU Offloading for Run 4
J. Esseiva*, M. Bandieramonte, J.D. Chapman, J.L. Cooke, M. Duehrssen-Debling, J. Elmsheuser, M. Javurkova, B. Morgan, E. Tcherniaev, S. Diederichs, A. Gheata and M. Novak
*: corresponding author
Full text: Not available
Abstract
Monte Carlo detector simulation plays a central role in high-energy physics, providing the foundation for precision measurements and searches for new phenomena. At the same time, it is extremely computationally demanding. For Run 3, the ATLAS experiment implemented a series of targeted optimizations and tunings to reduce CPU usage while preserving physics accuracy. Collectively, these improvements achieved approximately a factor-of-two speed-up compared to the Run 2 baseline. For Run 4, ATLAS is refactoring the simulation code to streamline the interface with Geant4 and make it more maintainable by removing unnecessary layers. In parallel, the collaboration is exploring a transformative direction for Full Simulation by offloading electromagnetic physics to GPUs and moving toward hybrid CPU-GPU execution models. This effort builds on the progress of the AdePT and Celeritas projects, which provide GPU-accelerated EM physics and navigation capabilities. Importantly, ATLAS is already capable of submitting hybrid GPU simulation jobs on the Grid, marking a key milestone toward operational deployment and production-quality workflows. This contribution presents the current status of these developments, including CPU/GPU performance, physics accuracy, and practical deployment, and outlines the short- and long-term enhancements that will guide the evolution of ATLAS Full Simulation toward Run 4 and beyond.
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