We investigate the performance of Opticks, an NVIDIA OptiX API 7.5 GPU-accelerated photon propagation compared with a single-threaded Geant4 simulation. We compare the simulations using an
improved model of the NEXT-CRAB-0 gaseous time projection chamber. Performance results suggest that Opticks improves simulation speeds by between 58.47 ± 0.02 and 181.39 ± 0.28 times relative to a CPU-only Geant4 simulation and these results vary between different types of GPU and CPU. A detailed comparison shows that the number of detected photons, along with their times and wavelengths, are in good agreement between Opticks and Geant4.
Published: February 2, 2026
Citation
Parmaksiz I., K. Mistry, C. Adams, J. Asaadi, K.G. Bailey, N. Byrnes, and B. Jones, et al. 2025.Performance of an Optical TPC Geant4 Simulation with Opticks GPU-Accelerated Photon Propagation.European Journal of Physics C 85:Art. No. 910.PNNL-SA-215789.doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14612-0