MPICorrelator: A parallel code for performing time correlations

The MPICorrelator application is a parallel application for processing multi-speckle X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy data via a data-parallelized implementation of the multi-tau algorithm. MPICorrelator spreads the analysis across a number of computing nodes in a cluster. Leveraging a number of computing nodes in this manner has led to a 30 times decrease in the amount of time required to analyze a multi-speckle time series. The system has recently gone operational at the 8 ID I beamline and has demonstrated the ability to keep up with acquisition rates of megapixel frames acquired at 60 Hz. Future improvements will increase the analysis rate to allow for real-time operation and feedback on live acquired data. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.