Introduction

HELIOS is a 1-D radiation-hydrodynamics code designed to study the hydrodynamic evolution of radiating plasmas. It can be used to study the evolution of planar, cylindrical, or spherical plasmas heated by laser beams or by external radiation sources.

In designing HELIOS, a strong emphasis has been placed on making it easy to use. It features a user-friendly graphical interface for setting up problems and monitoring the progress of the simulation. It has been designed to run on multiple platforms (Windows, Unix, Mac).

HELIOS also interacts with several codes that are used in the analysis of laboratory plasma experiments. These include:

• VISRAD, a 3-D view factor code used to design experiments at OMEGA, Z, and NIF. VISRAD includes a CAD capability for setting up targets and pointing lasers, and is used to compute the radiation environment throughout 3-D target systems. For any given surface element in its grid, VISRAD can write a file providing the time- and frequency-dependent spectrum onto that element. HELIOS has the capability to use these VISRAD incident flux files to specify an external radiation source.
• HYDROPLOT, a plotting tool that reads in data from HELIOS binary plot files and displays the results.
• SPECT3D, a collisional-radiative spectral analysis and imaging package. Results for time-dependent plasma conditions predicted by HELIOS are readily post-processed by SPECT3D to produce images and spectra that can be compared with experimental measurements.

To get started, please refer to:

• Major features of HELIOS
• Conventions for documentation
• Sample problems
• Supported platforms
• Reporting bugs
• Known issues
• User comments and suggestions

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