Citing Castro
There are a number of Castro papers that describe parts of the algorithm. We ask that you cite all of the appropriate papers describing the capabilities you used.
General code use
If you use Castro, we appreciate you citing the most recent code paper:
@article{Castro:JOSS,
doi = {10.21105/joss.02513},
url = {https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.02513},
year = {2020},
publisher = {The Open Journal},
volume = {5},
number = {54},
pages = {2513},
author = {Ann Almgren and Maria Barrios Sazo and John Bell and
Alice Harpole and Max Katz and Jean Sexton and Donald Willcox and
Weiqun Zhang and Michael Zingale},
title = {CASTRO: A Massively Parallel Compressible Astrophysics Simulation Code},
journal = {Journal of Open Source Software}
}
We also ask that you cite the Microphysics project paper, as Castro leverages that heavily:
@article{AMReX-Astro-Microphysics,
doi = {10.21105/joss.10422},
url = {https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.10422},
year = {2026},
publisher = {The Open Journal},
volume = {11},
number = {124},
pages = {10422},
author = {AMReX-Astro Microphysics Team and
Bhargava, Khanak and Bishop, Abigail and Chen, Zhi and
Fan, Doreen and Fields, Carl and Jacobs, Adam M. and
Johnson, Eric T. and Katz, Max P. and Krumholz, Mark and
Malone, Chris and Nonaka, Andy and Sharda, Piyush and
Smith Clark, Alexander and Timmes, Frank and Wibking, Ben and
Willcox, Don E. and Zingale, Michael},
title = {AMReX-Astrophysics Microphysics: A set of microphysics
routines for astrophysical simulation codes based on
the AMReX library},
journal = {Journal of Open Source Software}
}
You are also encouraged to cite the original code paper (which provides some details on the algorithmic implementations):
@ARTICLE{Castro:ApJ,
author = {{Almgren}, A.~S. and {Beckner}, V.~E. and {Bell},
J.~B. and {Day}, M.~S. and {Howell}, L.~H. and
{Joggerst}, C.~C. and {Lijewski}, M.~J. and
{Nonaka}, A. and {Singer}, M. and {Zingale}, M.},
title = "{CASTRO: A New Compressible Astrophysical
Solver. I. Hydrodynamics and Self-gravity}",
journal = {\apj},
archivePrefix = "arXiv",
eprint = {1005.0114},
primaryClass = "astro-ph.IM",
keywords = {equation of state, gravitation, hydrodynamics, methods:
numerical, nuclear reactions, nucleosynthesis,
abundances},
year = 2010,
month = jun,
volume = 715,
pages = {1221-1238},
doi = {10.1088/0004-637X/715/2/1221},
adsurl = {http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010ApJ...715.1221A},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
Radiation hydrodynamics
If you use the radiation hydrodynamics capabilities, please additionally cite the following:
@ARTICLE{2011ApJS..196...20Z,
author = {{Zhang}, W. and {Howell}, L. and {Almgren}, A. and
{Burrows}, A. and {Bell}, J.},
title = "{CASTRO: A New Compressible Astrophysical
Solver. II. Gray Radiation Hydrodynamics}",
journal = {\apjs},
archivePrefix = "arXiv",
eprint = {1105.2466},
primaryClass = "astro-ph.IM",
keywords = {diffusion, hydrodynamics, methods: numerical, radiative
transfer},
year = 2011,
month = oct,
volume = 196,
eid = {20},
pages = {20},
doi = {10.1088/0067-0049/196/2/20},
adsurl = {http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011ApJS..196...20Z},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
@ARTICLE{2013ApJS..204....7Z,
author = {{Zhang}, W. and {Howell}, L. and {Almgren}, A. and
{Burrows}, A. and {Dolence}, J. and {Bell}, J.},
title = "{CASTRO: A New Compressible Astrophysical
Solver. III. Multigroup Radiation Hydrodynamics}",
journal = {\apjs},
archivePrefix = "arXiv",
eprint = {1207.3845},
primaryClass = "astro-ph.IM",
keywords = {diffusion, hydrodynamics, methods: numerical, radiative
transfer },
year = 2013,
month = jan,
volume = 204,
eid = {7},
pages = {7},
doi = {10.1088/0067-0049/204/1/7},
adsurl = {http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013ApJS..204....7Z},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
Gravity and rotation
If you use the Poisson gravity solver or rotation, please cite the following, which included a lot of improvements to the coupling of hydro and gravity:
@ARTICLE{2016ApJ...819...94K,
author = {{Katz}, M.~P. and {Zingale}, M. and {Calder}, A.~C. and
{Swesty}, F.~D. and {Almgren}, A.~S. and {Zhang},
W.},
title = "{White Dwarf Mergers on Adaptive Meshes. I. Methodology
and Code Verification}",
journal = {\apj},
archivePrefix = "arXiv",
eprint = {1512.06099},
primaryClass = "astro-ph.HE",
keywords = {hydrodynamics, methods: numerical, supernovae: general,
white dwarfs},
year = 2016,
month = mar,
volume = 819,
eid = {94},
pages = {94},
doi = {10.3847/0004-637X/819/2/94},
adsurl = {http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016ApJ...819...94K},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
GPUs and scaling
For CPU performance numbers, please cite:
@INPROCEEDINGS{2018JPhCS1031a2024Z,
author = {{Zingale}, M. and {Almgren}, A.~S. and {Barrios Sazo}, M.~G. and
{Beckner}, V.~E. and {Bell}, J.~B. and {Friesen}, B. and
{Jacobs}, A.~M. and {Katz}, M.~P. and {Malone}, C.~M. and
{Nonaka}, A.~J. and {Willcox}, D.~E. and {Zhang}, W.},
title = "{Meeting the Challenges of Modeling Astrophysical Thermonuclear Explosions:
Castro, Maestro, and the AMReX Astrophysics Suite}",
keywords = {Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics},
booktitle = {Journal of Physics Conference Series},
year = 2018,
series = {Journal of Physics Conference Series},
volume = {1031},
month = may,
eid = {012024},
pages = {012024},
doi = {10.1088/1742-6596/1031/1/012024},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
eprint = {1711.06203},
primaryClass = {astro-ph.IM},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018JPhCS1031a2024Z},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
For GPU performance, please cite:
@ARTICLE{2020arXiv200705218K,
author = {{Katz}, Max P. and {Almgren}, Ann and {Barrios Sazo}, Maria and
{Eiden}, Kiran and {Gott}, Kevin and {Harpole}, Alice and
{Sexton}, Jean M. and {Willcox}, Don E. and {Zhang}, Weiqun and
{Zingale}, Michael},
title = "{Preparing Nuclear Astrophysics for Exascale}",
journal = {arXiv e-prints},
keywords = {Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics,
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena},
year = 2020,
month = jul,
eid = {arXiv:2007.05218},
pages = {arXiv:2007.05218},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
eprint = {2007.05218},
primaryClass = {astro-ph.IM},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020arXiv200705218K},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
Spectral deferred corrections
For the 2nd and 4th order SDC coupling of hydro and reactions, please cite:
@ARTICLE{2019ApJ...886..105Z,
author = {{Zingale}, M. and {Katz}, M.~P. and {Bell}, J.~B. and
{Minion}, M.~L. and {Nonaka}, A.~J. and {Zhang}, W.},
title = "{Improved Coupling of Hydrodynamics and Nuclear Reactions via
Spectral Deferred Corrections}",
journal = {\apj},
keywords = {Hydrodynamics, Astrophysical fluid dynamics, Computational methods,
Computational astronomy, Astronomy software, Nuclear astrophysics,
Nucleosynthesis, Stellar nucleosynthesis, Physics - Computational Physics,
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics},
year = 2019,
month = dec,
volume = {886},
number = {2},
eid = {105},
pages = {105},
doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ab4e1d},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
eprint = {1908.03661},
primaryClass = {physics.comp-ph},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019ApJ...886..105Z},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
Zenodo
You should also cite the zenodo DOI for the code release. A bibtex entry for the latest release can be found here:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2301848
The bibtex for the latest version is included below (updated automatically):
@misc{https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2301848,
doi = {10.5281/ZENODO.2301848},
url = {https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.2301848},
author = {the Castro Development Team, and Almgren, Ann and Barrios Sazo, Maria and Bell, John and Chen, Zhi and Harpole, Alice and Johnson, Eric and Katz, Maximilian and Sexton, Jean and Willcox, Donald and Zhang, Weiqun and Zingale, Michael},
keywords = {astrophysics, hydrodynamics, adaptive mesh refinement},
title = {AMReX-Astro/Castro: Release 26.09},
publisher = {Zenodo},
year = {2026},
copyright = {Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International}
}