Machine learningHierarchical Acceleration

Fast Multipole Method

The Fast Multipole Method (FMM) is a hierarchical algorithm that reduces the computational complexity of particle interactions from O(n²) to O(n log n) or O(n), developed by Greengard and Rokhlin in 1987. By grouping distant particles and approximating their cumulative effects via multipole expansions, FMM enables efficient simulation of N-body problems, boundary integral equations, and Coulomb interactions.

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Sources

  1. Greengard, L., & Rokhlin, V. (1987). A fast algorithm for particle simulations. Journal of Computational Physics, 73(2), 325–348. DOI: 10.1016/0021-9991(87)90140-9
  2. Greengard, L. (1988). The Rapid Evaluation of Potential Fields in Particle Systems. MIT Press. ISBN: 0262071088
  3. Ying, L., Biros, G., & Zorin, D. (2004). A kernel-independent adaptive fast multipole method. Journal of Computational Physics, 196(2), 591–626. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2003.11.021

Related methods

ScholarGateFast Multipole Method (Fast Multipole Method (FMM)). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/numerical-methods/fast-multipole-method