Fast Domain Partitioning Method for dynamic boundary integral equations applicable to non-planar faults dipping in 3-D elastic half-space

The elastodynamic boundary integral equation method (BIEM) in real space and in the temporal domain is an accurate semi-analytical tool to investigate the earthquake rupture dynamics on non-planar faults. However, its heavy computational demand for a historic integral generally increases with a time complexity of O(MN3)for the number of time steps N and elements M due to volume integration in the causality cone. In this study, we introduce an efficient BIEM, termed the 'Fast Domain Partitioning Method' (FDPM), which enables us to reduce the computation time to the order of the surface integral, O(MN2), without degrading the accuracy. The memory requirement is also reduced to O(M-2) from O((MN)-N-2). FDPM uses the physical nature of Green's function for stress to partition the causality cone into the domains of the P and S wave fronts, the domain in-between the P and S wave fronts, and the domain of the static equilibrium, where the latter two domains exhibit simpler dependences on time and/or space. The scalability of this method is demonstrated on the large-scale parallel computing environments of distributed memory systems. It is also shown that FDPM enables an efficient use of memory storage, which makes it possible to reduce computation times to a previously unprecedented level. We thus present FDPM as a powerful tool to break through the current fundamental difficulties in running dynamic simulations of coseismic ruptures and earthquake cycles under realistic conditions of fault geometries.