PLUTO

The PLUTO code is a state-of-the-art modular code for the solution of hyperbolic/parabolic systems of conservation laws, providing both finite volume and finite difference techniques. The code is specialized for the solution of hypersonic flows in 1, 2, and 3 spatial dimensions and different systems of coordinates. PLUTO provides a multiphysics, multialgorithm modular environment particularly oriented toward the treatment of astrophysical flows in presence of discontinuities. Different hydrodynamic modules and algorithms may be independently selected to properly describe Newtonian, relativistic, MHD, or relativistic MHD fluids. The modular structure exploits a general framework for integrating a system of conservation laws, built on modern Godunov-type shock-capturing schemes. Although a plethora of numerical methods has been successfully developed over the past two decades, the vast majority shares a common discretization recipe, involving three general steps: a piecewise polynomial reconstruction followed by the solution of Riemann problems at zone interfaces and a final evolution stage. The current release exploits, in addition to the static grid version of the code, the distributed infrastructure of the CHOMBO library for multidimensional parallel computations over block-structured, adaptively refined grids.