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Quickstart

Let’s run your first simulation in just a few lines.

Run the built-in two-stream instability example:

spectraxgk --input examples/two_stream.toml

You’ll see:

  • Console output with:

  • Plasma frequency, Debye length normalizations

  • Box size, time step, species info

  • A figure with:

  • Energy traces (per-species kinetic + field + total)

  • Electric field heatmap \(E(x,t)\)
  • Per-species diagnostics (Hermite spectra, animated distribution functions)

🔹 Minimal Python API

You can also drive SPECTRAX-GK as a library:

from spectraxgk.io_config import read_toml
from spectraxgk.solver import run_simulation
from spectraxgk.post import load_result, plot_energy

cfg = read_toml("examples/linear_slab.toml")
info = run_simulation(cfg)
res = load_result(info["outfile"])
plot_energy(res)

🔹 Tweak and explore

Open the config file:

[sim]
mode = "dg"      # switch to "fourier" for Hermite–Fourier
tmax = 20.0      # run longer (20 / ω_p)
nt = 400         # more time steps

Re-run:

spectraxgk --input examples/two_stream.toml

🔹 Next steps

  • Try other configs in examples/ (Landau damping, bump-on-tail).
  • Explore inputs: Inputs Guide.
  • Learn physics: Physics.