Benefits of the Sirepo cloud computing framework for graduate level physics education

The Sirepo framework provides browser-based GUIs for particle accelerator modeling, X-ray beamlines, and other physical systems [1,2]. Such simulation codes require time and training to learn a command-line workflow involving multiple input and configuration files, execution on a high-performance server or cluster, post-processing with specialized software and finally visualization. The Sirepo framework is being developed to make state of the art codes available in the browser of any desktop, laptop or tablet. This work is facilitating education of graduate students and enabling instantaneous sharing of simulation details between colleagues. Sirepo enables any code with a command-line interface to be brought to the cloud, automatically providing features that enable subsequent use with students. We discuss initial results from using Sirepo-based apps in the classroom.

[1] Sirepo cloud computing framework, https://github.com/radiasoft/sirepo

[2] Sirepo Scientific Gateway, https://sirepo.com