OSIRIS 4.0: A state of the art framework for kinetic plasma simulations*

The OSIRIS [1] Electromagnetic particle-in-cell (EM-PIC) code has been widely used in the numerical modeling of many astrophysical and laboratory scenarios. Since the release of version 4.0, the framework has been continuously developed to support multiple hardware architectures, and to extend the base algorithm, allowing the code to address an increasingly wider range of problems, all from a common code base. In this work we give an overview of the current status of the OSIRIS framework, describing the multiple simulation modes available (Quasi-3D, PGC, QED, Shearing and spherical geometries, etc.), and the multiple hardware configurations supported (AVX, KNL, CUDA, etc.). We will also focus on new features being introduced into the code, such as spectral and hybrid field solvers, and alternative charge conservation schemes. Finally, we will discuss some of the software engineering aspects allowing for the development and maintenance of a large code base, and the collaboration of a continuously growing development team.

 

[1] R. A. Fonseca et al., Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2331, 342-351 (2002)