N-Body Simulation Inspired by Metaheuristics Optimization

摘要

The N-body problem in classical physics, is the calculation of force ofgravitational attraction of heavenly bodies towards each other. Solving this problemfor many heavenly bodies has always posed a challenge to physicists andmathematicians. Large number of bodies, huge masses, long distances and exponentiallyincreasing number of equations of motion of the bodies have been themajor hurdles in solving this problem for large and complex galaxies. Adventof high performance computational machines have mitigated the problem to muchextent, but still for large number of bodies it consumes huge amount of resourcesand days for computation. Conventional algorithms have been able to reduce thecomputational complexity from O(n~2) to O(nlogn) by splitting the space into atree or mesh network, researchers are still looking for improvements. In thisresearch work we propose a novel solution to N-body problem inspired by metaheuristicsalgorithms. The proposed algorithm is simulated for various time periodsof selected heavenly bodies and analyzed for speed and accuracy. Theresults are compared with that of conventional algorithms. The outcomes showabout 50% time saving with almost no loss in accuracy. The proposed approachbeing a metaheuristics optimization technique, attempts to find optimal solution tothe problem, searching the entire space in a unique and efficient manner in a verylimited amount of time.