SI2-SSI: Particle-In-Cell and Kinetic Simulation Center

利用粒子池（PIC）方法进行计算机模拟已广泛应用于等离子体物理的基础和应用研究。例如，计算带电粒子自一致相互作用的模拟有助于开发新的加速器技术，新的辐射源，用于磁和惯性聚变研究，并有助于理解太阳风的物理特性。加州大学洛杉矶分校的细胞内粒子和动力学模拟软件中心（PICKSC）将致力于通过为不同的计算硬件提供和记录说明性软件程序，为并行PIC程序的快速构建提供灵活的框架，以及几个不同的生产程序，从而显著扩大PIC模拟的影响。该项目还将包括开发和比较不同PIC算法的活动，并记录开发和使用PIC程序的最佳实践。该项目所促进的活动将汇集一个跨学科的教师、研究人员、博士后学者和研究生团队。该项目的重要目标还包括为等离子体物理学和计算机科学的本科和研究生课程开发教育软件，并将通过外联和年度讲习班建立一个庞大的用户社区。本项目所促进的活动将产生重大的广泛影响。在大型计算机上运行的一组文档完备的组件和示例代码以及一组基本的生产代码将允许来自各个级别和许多学科的学生和研究人员了解用于模拟等离子体的优化PIC和动力学仿真软件的内部工作原理。这将允许他们构建自己的软件，或者与商业上可用的代码、自己的代码和公开的模拟数据进行独立的比较。向更多的研究人员提供生产代码将提高科学发现的速度。该软件将允许正在开发工具的计算机科学家使用下一代硬件，将现有软件与高度优化的代码进行性能比较，并将为新代码开发人员提供并行化和优化软件的测试平台，以进行性能比较。此外，该项目将为教育提供最先进的研究软件，包括物理和计算机科学课程，将有助于培养下一代等离子体物理学家（在许多分支学科中）和计算科学家。基于更简单的框架代码的交互工具对本科和高中教育也很有用。记录最佳实践的示例将节省研究生和新研究人员在学习如何最好地使用PIC模拟方面的大量时间。

Computer simulations using the particle-in-cell (PIC) method are widely used for basic and applied research involving plasma physics applications. For example, simulations that calculate the self-consistent interaction of charged particles aid in the development of new accelerator technologies, new radiation sources, are used in magnetic and inertial fusion research, and help understand the physics of the solar wind. The Particle-in-Cell and Kinetic Simulation Software Center (PICKSC) at UCLA will aim to significantly broaden the impact of PIC simulations by making available and documenting illustrative software programs for different computing hardware, a flexible Framework for rapid construction of parallelized PIC programs, and several distinct production programs. This project will also include activities on developing and comparing different PIC algorithms and documenting best practices for developing and using PIC programs. The activities fostered by this project will bring together an interdisciplinary team of faculty, research staff, post-doctoral scholars, and graduate students. Important goals of this project include also the development of educational software for undergraduate and graduate courses in plasma physics and computer science and will, to build a large community of users through outreach and an annual workshop. The broader impact of the activities fostered by this project will be significant. A well-documented set of components and example codes for running on large computers and a set of basic production codes will allow students and researchers from all levels and many disciplines to understand the inner workings of optimized PIC and kinetic simulation software used to model plasmas. It will allow them to build their own software, or to make independent comparisons against commercially available codes, against their own codes, and against published simulation data. The availability of production codes to more researchers will increase the rate of scientific discovery. The software will allow computer scientists who are developing tools that allow existing software to use next generation hardware to compare their performances against highly optimized codes, and will provide new code developers a test-bed of parallelized and optimized software for performance comparison. Furthermore, this projet will make state-of-the-art research software available for education, both for physics and computer science courses, will help train the next generation of plasma physicists (in many sub disciplines) and computational scientists. Interactive tools based on simpler skeleton codes will also be useful for undergraduate and high school education. Documenting examples of best practices will save graduate students and new researchers significant time in learning how to best employ PIC simulations.