Modeling Plasma Physics Phenomena with a Complex Multiphysics Code

Warm Dense Matter (WDM) is an emerging and challenging field at the crossroads of strongly and weakly coupled plasmas and solid, liquid and vapor states. We discuss a code and simulation capability, PISALE (Pacific Island Structured AMR with ALE), which has many unique features able to capture subtleties of the WDM regime and the processes involved in creating WDM states in laboratories. Multiphysics packages in PISALE include radiation hydrodynamics, surface tension, thermal diffusion, anisotropic material strength with material time history, advanced models for material fragmentation, and x-ray and ion beam deposition. The code framework is also used to model a variety of other phenomena including inertial fusion energy experiments, EUV lithography, hypersonic vehicle simulations, ground water flow, and droplet interactions. We give an overview of the code/framework and describe how it is being updated to study High Energy Density (HED) experiments at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. We also describe validation using previous IFE-relevant experiments at a variety of facilities including laser and ion-beam laboratories. The code is currently being used and improved by graduate students across the United States to study both high-performance computing techniques and simulations of these complex physical phenomena. It additionally serves as a teaching tool for the next generation of computational plasma physicists and we describe its educational use as well.