KPolaris: GPU-accelerated Polarized Radiative Transfer in General Relativity
Abstract
Polarized black-hole images carry information about both the magnetized plasma and the curved spacetime through which the radiation propagates. We present KPolaris, an open-source GPU-accelerated general-relativistic polarized radiative-transfer code built on the Kokkos framework. It supports analytic plasma models and GRMHD simulation data, with both fast-light and slow-light radiative transfer. The code also provides diagnostics that connect image structure to the emitting plasma and to propagation effects along the rays. These include emissivity-weighted plasma maps, emission contributions from selected regions, selected-ray histories, and sensitivities of the Stokes parameters to plasma parameters. Numerical convergence tests and comparisons with an independent radiative-transfer code assess the accuracy of the calculations. GPU acceleration reduces the computational cost of image generation, facilitating multi-frequency and time-dependent studies of polarized black-hole images.
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BibTeX
@misc{zhang2026kpolaris,
title = {{KPolaris: GPU-accelerated Polarized Radiative Transfer in General Relativity}},
author = {Zelin Zhang and Bin Chen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.26298},
eprint = {2609.26298},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26298},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - KPolaris: GPU-accelerated Polarized Radiative Transfer in General Relativity
AU - Zelin Zhang
AU - Bin Chen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.26298
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.26298
AB - Polarized black-hole images carry information about both the magnetized plasma and the curved spacetime through which the radiation propagates. We present KPolaris, an open-source GPU-accelerated general-relativistic polarized radiative-transfer code built on the Kokkos framework. It supports analytic plasma models and GRMHD simulation data, with both fast-light and slow-light radiative transfer. The code also provides diagnostics that connect image structure to the emitting plasma and to propagation effects along the rays. These include emissivity-weighted plasma maps, emission contributions from selected regions, selected-ray histories, and sensitivities of the Stokes parameters to plasma parameters. Numerical convergence tests and comparisons with an independent radiative-transfer code assess the accuracy of the calculations. GPU acceleration reduces the computational cost of image generation, facilitating multi-frequency and time-dependent studies of polarized black-hole images.
ER -