COUPLED DIPOLE SIMULATIONS OF ELASTIC LIGHT SCATTERING ON PARALLEL SYSTEMS

Abstract

The Coupled Dipole method is used to simulate Elastic Light Scattering from arbitrary shaped particles. To facilitate simulation of relative large particles, such as human white blood cells, the number of dipoles required for the simulation is approximately 105 to 106. In order to carry out such simulations, very powerful computers are necessary. We have designed a parallel version of the Coupled Dipole method, and have implemented it on a distributed memory parallel computer, a Parsytec PowerXplorer, containing 32 PowerPC-601 processors. The efficiency of the parallel implementation is investigated for simulations of model particles. Scattering by a sphere, modelled with 33552 dipoles, is simulated and compared with analytical Mie theory. Finally the suitability of the Coupled Dipole method to simulate Elastic Light Scattering from larger particles, such as white blood cells, is discussed.