Numerical Simulation of Wave Propagation, Part II: Parallel Computing

In the first part of this series,' we described the most commonly used methods for numerically solving wave propagation in heterogeneous media with a single processor. However, if we want to perform such simulations for large-scale media, computations on single processors can quickly become prohibitively expensive. This is particularly true for elastic waves because we must compute at least three field variables at each node of a three-dimensional grid. Consequently, many research efforts have focused on developing massively parallel strategies for large numbers of processors; the purpose of this article is to provide an overview of what this research has accomplished so far. In the second part of a two-part series, the authors discuss massively parallel strategies for numerically solving wave propagation in heterogeneous media.