Collision Finding for Particles on Non-linear Paths.
Mark C. Lewis · 2009
For many N-body hard-sphere collisional simulations particle trajectories can not be assumed to be linear for the purposes of collision detection. This paper presents such a simulation and explores the relative efficiency of several methods of detecting collisions for non-linear paths. The methods can be categorized by how they approximate particle motion as well as by how they search for collisions. The motion can either use an analytic description of the exact motion or a cubic fit to that motion. The detection method can either use a standard Newton's method or a second order iterative method that makes new guessed based on the assumption of linear motion. Empirical testing found that for the system in question, using the method that makes guesses assuming linear motion and the full description of the motion can provide significant speed benefits across a wide range of simulation parameters. Keywords: N-body simulation, collision finding, optimization, physical simulation