PyCharge: An open-source Python package for self-consistent electrodynamics simulations of Lorentz oscillators and moving point charges

PyCharge is a computational electrodynamics Python simulator that can calculate the electromagnetic fields and potentials generated by moving point charges self-consistently simulate dipoles modeled as Lorentz oscillators. To total along discretized spatial grid at specified time, computes retarded time of each point, which are subsequently used to compute analytical solutions Maxwell's equations for charge. The oscillators driven electric field in system determines reaction radiation on dipole moment step. treats two opposite separate charge sources calculates their individual contributions potentials. expected coupling arises between captured simulation, modified radiative properties (radiative decay rate frequency shift) be extracted using dipole's energy step throughout simulation. separated near-field, require full response yield correct physics, calculated shown excellent agreement with Green's function results (<0.2% relative error, over wide range separations). Moving also specifying origin position time. includes parallelized version simulation method enable parallel execution computationally demanding simulations high performance computing environments significantly improve run Program Title: CPC Library link program files: https://doi.org/10.17632/77d5vt43h9.1 Developer's repository link: https://github.com/MatthewFilipovich/pycharge Licensing provisions: GPLv3 Programming language: 3.7 or newer Supplementary material: Documentation available pycharge.readthedocs.io. package its dependencies installed from PyPI: pypi.org/project/pycharge Nature problem: Calculating complex geometries charges, well self-consistent Solution method: potentials, solving governing equation motion. Additional comments including restrictions unusual features: implemented mpi4py [1]. L.D. Dalcin, R.R. Paz, P.A. Kler, A. Cosimo, Parallel distributed python, Advances Water Resources 34 (9) (2011) 1124–1139.