ThunderBoltz Documentation

This documentation includes some simple tutorials for using the ThunderBoltz plasma simulation package and a complete public API reference.

Installation

The Python API can be installed via pip.

pip install thunderboltz

The thunderboltz package ships with the C++ ThunderBoltz source and requires only a gcc compiler to run complete calculations.

The code can also be downloaded from the repository. Use the following command to clone the code into a local repository.

git clone git@github.com:lanl/ThunderBoltz.git

You may need to set up SSH keys in order to access Github. See the Github SSH Guide to set up access to Github repositories.

The basic ThunderBoltz functionality is available either as an executable in bin/thunderboltz.bin or can be compiled from the source in src/thunderboltz/cpp. To install the Python interface, run the install.sh script from the root directory.

./install.sh

Warning

This will upgrade pip and install specific versions of Python packages, so create an environment if you are concerned with Python package overwrite.

Tutorials

See the Quick Start Guide to go through a brief tutorial setting up a simple calculation and interpreting the results.

See Preparing Cross Sections for a tutorial on the various ways to obtain and manipulate cross sections for ThunderBoltz simulations.

See Running Multiple Calculations for a quick guide on how to vary simulation parameters and easily run simulations in parallel.

See Extracting Results for details on easily parsing, plotting, and exporting data from many ThunderBoltz simulations at once.

Benchmark Testing

See Benchmark Testing to run code that reproduces the results found in the paper.

Simulation Parameters

Review the Simulation Parameters for information on the default behavior of the code, the available input options, and details regarding output parameter definitions and interpretations.

API Reference

See the full API Reference for full documentation of the ThunderBoltz programming interface.