Computational astrophysics for the future: An open, modular approach with agreed standards would facilitate astrophysical discovery

Abstract

Scientific discovery is mediated by ideas that, after being formulated in hypotheses, can be tested, validated, and quantified before they eventually lead to accepted concepts. Computer-mediated discovery in astrophysics is no exception, but antiquated code that is only intelligible to scientists who were involved in writing it is holding up scientific discovery in the field. A bold initiative is needed to modernize astrophysics code and make it transparent and useful beyond a small group of scientists. (abridged)

Published in Science

References in corpus (2)

• The galactic population of white dwarfs
• Schroedinger's code: A preliminary study on research source code availability and link persistence in astrophysics

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Arepo public code release
• REBOUNDx: A Library for Adding Conservative and Dissipative Forces to Otherwise Symplectic N-body Integrations
• agnpy: An open-source python package modelling the radiative processes of jetted active galactic nuclei
• Non-intrusive hierarchical coupling strategies for multi-scale simulations in gravitational dynamics
• Stellar Evolution and Tidal Dissipation in REBOUNDx
• CORSIKA 8 - Towards a modern framework for the simulation of extensive air showers
• Venice: a multi-scale operator-splitting algorithm for multi-physics simulations