Open source, heterogeneous, nonlinear optics simulation

Abstract

The spatio-temporal evolution of a laser field taking part in a nonlinear optical interaction can be challenging to simulate, yet forms the basis for many experiments in ultrafast optics. To allow better insight into these phenomena, a program for nonlinear optics simulations is described, which can run on multiple hardware platforms, and is performant and open source. It was designed to deal with a number of complex problems in light-matter interaction accurately and reproducibly. The open source code allows for extensive cross-checking of its results by other researchers and growth of its capabilities over time, as well as serving to make the simulations associated with ultrafast experiments more broadly reproducible.