Branson

So you've decided to use Branson...

Here are some things to know:

Branson is not an acronym.
Branson requires MPI 3.0+, Boost (headers only), Metis and ParMetis.
The point of Branson is to study different algorithms for parallel Monte Carlo transport. Currently it contains particle passing and mesh passing methods for domain decomposition.
Many of the parameters that impact parallel performance can be set in the input file.
The input file format is ugly right now and I don't have a good list of parameters and what they do. Sorry.
Input files are in XML, which makes them easy to generate and change in python.
Input files are complicated when you want to have multiple spatial regions but are pretty simple otherwise.

Installing Branson:

Branson uses CMake. The main CMakelist file is in the src directory.
There is only one CMake user option right now: "CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE" which can be set on the command line with "DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=<Debug|Release>" and the default is release.
Visualization is optional and will be turned on if HDF5 and SILO libraries are found by CMake

Fake Multigrop Branson:

The clean_mg branch has a new capability that mimics the data flow in real multigroup transport.
This branch sets the number of groups at the configure step in CMake. I know this is messy from a usability standpoint but it makes the data layout very easy to control when the number of groups is known at compile time. Use the "N_GROUPS" CMake variable to set the number of groups (e.g. cmake -DN_GROUPS=10 ../path/to/CMakeLists.txt).
The code will still produce gray results! The physical value in each group is the same and it's still set via the input deck.
This branch samples a group with a uniform PDF (it does not weight the opacity with a Planckian spectrum).

Authors

Branson is released under the BSD 3-Clause License. For more details see the LICENSE.txt file.

LANL code designation: C17048