# Partitioning

The underlying spatial decomposition strategy used by LAMMPS for
distributed-memory parallelism is set with the [comm_style
command](comm_style) and can be either \"brick\" (a regular grid) or
\"tiled\".

> Domain decomposition schemes
>
> > This figure shows the different kinds of domain decomposition used
> > for MPI parallelization: \"brick\" on the left with an orthogonal
> > (left) and a triclinic (middle) simulation domain, and a \"tiled\"
> > decomposition (right). The black lines show the division into
> > subdomains, and the contained atoms are \"owned\" by the
> > corresponding MPI process. The green dashed lines indicate how
> > subdomains are extended with \"ghost\" atoms up to the communication
> > cutoff distance.

The LAMMPS simulation box is a 3d or 2d volume, which can be of
orthogonal or triclinic shape, as illustrated in the
[domain-decomposition]{.title-ref} figure for the 2d case. Orthogonal
means the box edges are aligned with the *x*, *y*, *z* Cartesian axes,
and the box faces are thus all rectangular. Triclinic allows for a more
general parallelepiped shape in which edges are aligned with three
arbitrary vectors and the box faces are parallelograms. In each
dimension, box faces can be periodic, or non-periodic with fixed or
shrink-wrapped boundaries. In the fixed case, atoms which move outside
the face are deleted; shrink-wrapped means the position of the box face
adjusts continuously to enclose all the atoms.

For distributed-memory MPI parallelism, the simulation box is spatially
decomposed (partitioned) into non-overlapping subdomains which fill the
box. The default partitioning, \"brick\", is most suitable when atom
density is roughly uniform, as shown in the left-side images of the
[domain-decomposition]{.title-ref} figure. The subdomains comprise a
regular grid, and all subdomains are identical in size and shape. Both
the orthogonal and triclinic boxes can deform continuously during a
simulation, e.g. to compress a solid or shear a liquid, in which case
the processor subdomains likewise deform.

For models with non-uniform density, the number of particles per
processor can be load-imbalanced with the default partitioning. This
reduces parallel efficiency, as the overall simulation rate is limited
by the slowest processor, i.e. the one with the largest computational
load. For such models, LAMMPS supports multiple strategies to reduce the
load imbalance:

-   The processor grid decomposition is by default based on the
    simulation cell volume and tries to optimize the volume to surface
    ratio for the subdomains. This can be changed with the [processors
    command](processors).
-   The parallel planes defining the size of the subdomains can be
    shifted with the [balance command](balance). Which can be done in
    addition to choosing a more optimal processor grid.
-   The recursive bisectioning algorithm in combination with the
    \"tiled\" communication style can produce a partitioning with equal
    numbers of particles in each subdomain.

![decomp1](img/decomp-regular.png){width="24.0%"}
![decomp2](img/decomp-processors.png){width="24.0%"}
![decomp3](img/decomp-balance.png){width="24.0%"}
![decomp4](img/decomp-rcb.png){width="24.0%"}

The pictures above demonstrate different decompositions for a 2d system
with 12 MPI ranks. The atom colors indicate the load imbalance of each
subdomain, with green being optimal and red the least optimal.

Due to the vacuum in the system, the default decomposition is
unbalanced, with several MPI ranks without atoms (left). By forcing a
1x12x1 processor grid, every MPI rank does computations now, but the
number of atoms per subdomain is still uneven, and the thin slice shape
increases the amount of communication between subdomains (center left).
With a 2x6x1 processor grid and shifting the subdomain divisions, the
load imbalance is further reduced and the amount of communication
required between subdomains is less (center right). And using the
recursive bisectioning leads to further improved decomposition (right).