zpic

As part of our commitment to continuously raising the bar we are promoting a new initiative to foster training in plasma physics using computer simulations. We are freely distributing a 2D self-contained fully relativistic electromagnetic code, ZPIC, developed by Ricardo Fonseca which takes advantage of the expertise and experience from the development of Osiris.

ZPIC is self-contained and requires only a C compiler. The output files are written in a new file format called ZDF that can be easily read using the supplied routines in a number of languages, such as Python, Matlab and IDL. If available, a Python environment can be used to control the simulations and visualize code output.

We will be adding input files that can be used to illustrate several textbook and advanced plasma mechanisms, including instructions for parameter space exploration. We also invite contributions to this repository of input files that will be made freely available to the community provided the input decks comply with the format defined by the ZPIC team.

This effort is developed in close collaboration with UCLA.

NEW: To learn more about opportunities to work in the ZPIC framework, click here.