Package: vplanet
VPLanet: The Virtual Planet SimulatorOverviewVPLanetis software to simulate planetary system evolution, with a focus on habitability. Physical models, typically consisting of ordinary differential equations, are coupled together to simulate evolution, from planetary cores to passing stars, for the age of a system. We strive for full transparency and reproducibility in our software, and this repository contains 1) thesource code, 2)extensive documentation, 3) scripts and files togenerate published figuresand performparameter sweeps, and 4)scripts to validate the current release. We can't claim we found life beyond the Earth with closed-source or unreliable software!To get started, ensure you have clang/gcc installed and follow theInstallation Guide. You can also watch videos on ourYouTube channelon how to install and run VPLanet, as well as updates on recent results .ModulesVPLanetcurrently consists of 13 functioning "modules," each containing a set of equations
that simulates a specific physical process:AtmEsc: Roche lobe overflow and thermal escape (energy-limited and radiation-recombination-limited) of an atmosphere, including water photolyzation, hydrogen
escape, oxygen escape, and oxygen build-up.Binary: Orbital evolution of a single circumbinary planet.DistOrb: 2nd and 4th order semi-analytic models of orbital evolution outside
of resonance.DistRot: Evolution of a world's rotational axis due to orbital evolution and
the stellar torque.EqTide: Tidal evolution in the equilibrium tide framework.Flare: Flare frequency distribution and flare XUV luminosity evolution in low-mass stars.GalHabit: Evolution of a wide orbit due to the galactic tide and impulses from
passing stars (including radial migration).MagmOc: Thermal and geochemical evolution of a magma ocean.POISE: Energy balance climate model including dynamic ice sheets and lithospheric
compression/rebound.RadHeat: Radiogenic heating in a world's core, mantle, and crust.SpiNBody: N-body integrator for the evolution of a system of massive particles.Stellar: Evolution of a star's bolometric and XUV luminosity, temperature, radius, and mass concentration. Also includes magnetic braking and stellar wind spin-down.ThermInt: Thermal interior evolution, including magnetic fields, for planets
undergoing plate tectonics or stagnant lid evolution.Many of these modules can be combined together to simulate numerous phenomena and feedback loops in planetary systems.ResourcesTheexamples/directory contains input files and scripts for generating the figures inBarnes et al. (2020)and subsequent publications. The "examples" badge shows if all the examples can be built with the most recent version. TheManual/directory contains the pdf ofBarnes et al. (2020), which describes the physics of the first 11 modules, validates the software against observations and/or past results, and uses figures from theexamples/directory.An ecosystem of support software is also publicly available.VPLotis both a command line tool to quickly plot the evolution of a single integration, and also includes matplotlib functions to generate publication-worthy figures. TheVSPACEscript generates input files for a parameter space sweep, which can then be performed on an arbitrary number of cores withMultiPlanet. For large parameter sweeps, an enormous amount of data can be generated, which can slow analyses. To overcome this barrier, theBigPlanetcode can both compress datasets into HDF5 format, including statistics of an integration, and tools to facilitate plotting. These three scripts can be executed from the command line to seamlesslyperform parameter sweeps. These Python scripts are optimized foranacondadistributions versions 3.7-3.9. The "wheels" badge indicates if you can download and install the executables with pip for these Python distributions on the latest Linux and Mac operating systems.Code IntegrityBehind the scenes, the VPLanet team maintains code integrity through via various automatic checks at every merge into the main branch. You can see the status of these checks via the "badges" the GitHub logo above. Currently we perform 5 checks: documentation ("docs"), units tests ("tests"), memory checks viavalgrind("memcheck"), confirmation that allexamplesare working ("examples"), and that the code is pip-installable on the latest Linux and Mac operating systems ("pip-install") for the Python distributions listed after the GitHub Actions badge. The percentage of the lines of code that are executed by the unit tests is shown with the "codecov" badge, with details available at ourCodecovaccount. We are committed to maintaining a stable tool for scientists to analyze any planetary system.CommunityVPLanetis a community project. We're happy to take pull requests; if you want to create one, please issue it to thedevbranch. The documentation includestutorials on adding new features and modules. It's a platform for planetary science that can grow exponentially, either by adding new physics or by adding competing models for clean comparisons.A list of additional GitHub repositories withVPLanetexamples can be foundhere.If you believe you have encountered a bug, please raise an issue using theIssuestab at the top of this page.If you'd like to stay up to date onVPLanetby joining the e-mail list, please send a request to Rory Barnes,rory@astro.washington.edu. You can also follow VPLanet on twitter:@VPLanetCode.AcknowledgmentsIf you use this code to generate results used in any publication or conference contribution, please citeBarnes, R. et al. (2020), PASP, 132, 24502.VPLanetdevelopment has been supported by NASA grants NNA13AA93A, NNX15AN35G, 80NSSC17K048, 13-13NAI7_0024, and 80NSSC20K0229. We also acknowledge support from the University of Washington and the Carnegie Institute for Science.Enjoy!© 2018-2023 The VPLanet Team.