Development of the RAYS Geometrical Optics Framework*

The objective of the RAYS geometrical optics framework is to provide a modern ray tracing capability which can accommodate any plasma geometry, frequency regime, or dispersion mode, is easy to extend without breaking existing functionality, Is so logical and straightforwardly laid out that anyone can add to it or modify it, and is computationally efficient. The organizing approach has been to separate the structure into a ray tracing kernel, which is generic and independent of the geometry and dispersion model, as distinct from a front-end such as control, analysis and graphics, which can be is very application specific.  The modular structure has been enforced by identifying component functionalities and defining a hierarchy of interfaces between functionalities from generic to specific that are independent of the implementation.  The kernel services are provided by statically linked libraries that can be invoked from a front-end stand-alone code or internally from a host code.  The framework is parallelized under OpenMP.  It is being adapted as an Integrated Plasma Simulator (IPS) component which will facilitate benchmarking with other ray tracing capabilities.