Using TOP-C for commodity parallel computing in cosmic ray physics simulations

Abstract top-c (Task Oriented Parallel C) is a freely available package for parallel computing. It is designed to be easy to learn and to have good tolerance for the high latencies that are common in commodity networks of computers. It has been successfully used in a wide range of examples, providing linear speedup with the number of computers. A brief overview of top-c is provided, along with recent experience with cosmic ray physics simulations.