Xraypac — a software package for modeling x-ray-induced dynamics of matter
Artist's impression of a buckyball in an X-ray laser flash. Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC
Rapid development of x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) science has taken place
in recent years due to the consecutive launch of large- scale XFEL instruments
around the world. Research areas such as plasma and warm dense matter physics
or coherent x-ray imaging take advantage of the unprecedentedly high
intensities of XFELs. A single XFEL pulse can induce very complex dynamics
within matter initiated by core-hole photoionization. Due to this complexity
theoretical modeling revealing details of the excitation and relaxation of
irradiated matter is important for the correct interpretation of the
measurements and for proposing new experiments. XMDYN is a computer simulation
tool developed for modeling dynamics of matter induced by high-intensity
x-rays. It utilizes atomic data calculated by the ab initio XATOM toolkit.
Here we release a combined package Xraypac, which contains the core elements of the XATOM, XMDYN and XCASCADE computer simulation tools.