Virtual Micromagnetics: A Framework for Accessible and Reproducible Micromagnetic Simulation

TL;DR

Virtual Micromagnetics provides an accessible, reproducible framework for micromagnetic simulations through virtual environments, facilitating sharing, installation, and extension of simulation tools in magnetic nanomaterials research.

Contribution

It introduces a virtual machine-based framework that simplifies access to micromagnetic simulation packages and promotes reproducibility and reuse in computational micromagnetics.

Findings

Enables easy access to complex simulation packages

Supports sharing and reproducibility of simulation data

Extensible to other disciplines and closed-source software

Abstract

Computational micromagnetics requires numerical solution of partial differential equations to resolve complex interactions in magnetic nanomaterials. The Virtual Micromagnetics project described here provides virtual machine simulation environments to run open-source micromagnetic simulation packages. These environments allow easy access to simulation packages that are often difficult to compile and install, and enable simulations and their data to be shared and stored in a single virtual hard disk file, which encourages reproducible research. Virtual Micromagnetics can be extended to automate the installation of micromagnetic simulation packages on non-virtual machines, and to support closed-source and new open-source simulation packages, including packages from disciplines other than micromagnetics, encouraging reuse. Virtual Micromagnetics is stored in a public GitHub repository under a three-clause Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license.