PlasmaPy v0.9.0 (2022-11-11)

Backwards Incompatible Changes

• Removed the none_shall_pass parameter from particle_input(). Instead, typing.Optional should be used to create the annotation (e.g., Optional[ParticleLike]). (#1057)

• Renamed the first parameter of particle_input() from wrapped_function to wrapped. (#1057)

• Refactored the return pattern of find_floating_potential to follow the (vf, extras) pattern, where vf is the computed floating potential and extras is an instance of VFExtras containing extra parameters from the computation. (#1565)

• Moved plasmapy.particles.particle_collections.ionic_levels to plasmapy.particles.atomic.ionic_levels. (#1697)

• Deprecated plasmapy.formulary.collisions.fundamental_electron_collision_freq. The Maxwellian_avg_ei_collision_freq attribute of MaxwellianCollisionFrequencies should be used instead. (#1703)

• Deprecated plasmapy.formulary.collisions.fundamental_ion_collision_freq. The Maxwellian_avg_ii_collision_freq attribute of MaxwellianCollisionFrequencies should be used instead. (#1703)

• The parameters Z and mass_numb are now keyword-only for ionic_symbol and particle_symbol. (#1718)

• Moved the valid_categories attribute of is_category to plasmapy.particles.particle_class.valid_categories. (#1720)

• Changed the behavior of IonicLevel, IonizationState, and IonizationStateCollection so that an equality comparison with an object of a different type returns False instead of raising a TypeError. (#1721)

• When the argument provided to GeneralWire is not callable, a TypeError will be raised instead of a ValueError. (#1782)

• In spectral_density and spectral_density_model, a TypeError is now raised when ions is an unsupported type. (#1782)

• In AbstractGrid, a TypeError is now raised instead of a ValueError when start or stop are not of the appropriate type. (#1783)

Deprecations and Removals

• The capability of particle_input() to process arguments annotated with Particle or (Particle, Particle) is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use ParticleLike as an annotation instead. (#1057)

• The integer_charges attribute of IonizationState has been removed after being deprecated in v0.7.0. Use charge_numbers instead. (#1633)

• The integer_charge attributes of Particle and IonicLevel have been removed after being deprecated in v0.7.0. Use the charge_number attribute instead. (#1633)

• The plasmapy.particles.atomic.integer_charge function has been removed after being deprecated in v0.7.0. Use charge_number instead. (#1633)

• Deprecated plasmapy.formulary.collisions.frequencies.collision_frequency in favor of collision frequency classes in plasmapy.formulary.collisions. See also #1703. (#1676)

Features

• Expanded the functionality of the particle_input() decorator to convert particle-like and particle-list-like arguments into Particle, CustomParticle, and ParticleList objects. This change is part of an ongoing effort to improve compatibility of functions in subpackages like plasmapy.particles and plasmapy.formulary with CustomParticle and ParticleList objects. (#1057)

• Added the find_ion_saturation_current function to the swept_langmuir module. The function fits the tail of a swept Langmuir probe trace and returns the linear fit corresponding to the ion-saturation current. (#1469)

• Created plasmapy.utils.data to contain functionality for downloading data from PlasmaPy’s data repository. This module contains a new prototype function plasmapy.utils.data.downloader.get_file which downloads a file from the repository. (#1486)

• Added the RelativisticBody class to facilitate calculation of the relativistic properties of a body in motion. (#1540)

• Added inplace as an optional argument to boris_push. (#1556)

• Added a function to calculate the dimensionless Lundquist number. (#1642)

• Created the plasmapy.formulary.densities module. (#1664)

• Added critical_density to calculate the critical density of a plasma for a given frequency of radiation. (#1664)

• Added the plasmapy.formulary.collisions.CollisionFrequencies class. This class can be used to calculate collision frequencies for two interacting species in a plasma. Superseded by #1703. (#1676)

• Reimplemented chemical_potential. (#1678)

• Allowed Lorentz_factor to accept and return nan values. (#1681)

• Added a test for Hall_parameter in plasmapy/formulary/test/test_dimensionless.py. (#1689)

• Replaced usage of os.path with the more modern pathlib. (#1690)

• Replaced pkg_resources with the more modern importlib.metadata. (#1692)

• Added the categories attribute to CustomParticle, and added the "custom" particle category. (#1700)

• Moved the is_category method of Particle to AbstractPhysicalParticle. This method is now inherited by both Particle and CustomParticle. (#1700)

• Added MaxwellianCollisionFrequencies for calculating relevant collision frequencies for Maxwellian populations. (#1703)

• Refactored collisions. The file collisions.py was converted into a subpackage (directory) and it’s contents was split into appropriately categorized and named sub-modules (files). (#1769)

Bug Fixes

• Modified tests in the class TestSyntheticRadiograph to try to fix an intermittent failure of test_optical_density_histogram. (#1685)

Improved Documentation

• Added the Hollweg dispersion notebook. (#1392)

• Creates an example notebook for fitting Thomson scattering spectra using the spectral_density_model function. (#1520)

• Updated the Release Guide following the 0.8.1 release. (#1615)

• Added docs/whatsnew/dev.rst as a stub file for the changelogs between releases. (#1623)

• Added customizations for towncrier in pyproject.toml. (#1626)

• Updated the introductory paragraphs of the Coding Guide. (#1649)

• Added a section to the Coding Guide on best practices for naming variables. (#1650)

• Updated the section of the contributor guide on pre-commit, and moved it to docs/contributing/install_dev.rst. (#1651)

• Added sections to the Coding Guide on units and particles. (#1655)

• Updated the section of the Coding Guide on code style. (#1657)

• Added sections to the Coding Guide on lite-functions and aliases. (#1658)

• Added sections to the Coding Guide on imports and requirements. (#1659)

• Added sections on best practices for comments and error messages to the Coding Guide. (#1660)

• Updated the section of the Documentation Guide with more detail on the “Parameters”, “Raises”, and “Warns” sections of docstrings. (#1667)

• Added a guideline to the Coding Guide specifying how nan values should be treated in functions that accept array_like or Quantity inputs. (#1673)

• Added an admonition to the Changelog Guide that describes how to change reStructuredText links for removed code objects into inline literals in old changelog entries. (#1674)

• Split the patent clause from the license file (LICENSE.md) into its own file (PATENT.md). (#1686)

• Added explanatory text to the “Notes” sections in the docstrings for functions within magnetostatics. (#1695)

• Enabled :py: as a reStructuredText role for inline code formatting in the documentation. (#1698)

• Increased the minimum version of Sphinx to 5.0.0. (#1698)

• Updated docstrings and annotations for ParticleList and its methods. (#1713)

• Updated docstrings and annotations in plasmapy.particles, including by marking parameters as particle-like or atom-like. (#1718)

• Added a section to the Documentation Guide on troubleshooting. (#1752)

Trivial/Internal Changes

• Moved the functionality responsible for converting particle-like arguments to particle objects from the particle_input() decorator into a separate class that is now used inside particle_input(). (#1057)

• Added wrapt as a dependency. (#1057)

• The particle_input() decorator now processes arguments annotated with ParticleLike. (#1057)

• Added tomli to the tests category of requirements. (#1500)

• Added tests to verify that the requirements given in the .txt files in the requirements directory are consistent with the requirements given in setup.cfg and pyproject.toml. (#1500)

• Restricted the required version of sphinx-gallery to < 0.11.0, since sphinx-gallery changed their thumbnail containers to flex containers. See pull request sphinx-gallery/#906 and issue sphinx-gallery/#905 for more detail. (#1654)

• Moved the plasmapy.formulary.dimensionless.quantum_theta function to plasmapy.formulary.quantum.quantum_theta. This function can still be called from the plasmapy.formulary.dimensionless module without issue. (#1671)

• Reimplemented plasmapy.formulary.quantum._chemical_potential_interp. (#1678)

• Re-enabled value testing for the quantum keyword argument in coupling_parameter. (#1678)

• Increased the minimum version of NumPy to 1.20.0. (#1694)

• Added the validate_class_attributes decorator to the decorators module. This decorator is useful for class methods that require optional parameters to be specified during class instantiation. (#1703)

• Made minor improvements to plasmapy.formulary.collisions.CollisionFrequencies. (#1705)

• Changed the towncrier requirement to >= 19.2.0, < 22.8.0. Superseded by #1717. (#1710)

• Applied automated refactorings from Sourcery. (#1714)

• Changed the minimum version of towncrier to 22.8.0 and the minimum version of sphinx_changelog to 1.2.0. (#1717)

• Changed chemical_potential to use the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno algorithm to implicitly solve for the ideal chemical potential. (#1726)

• Increased the minimum version of Astropy to 5.0.1. (#1727)

• Simplified the pull request template. (#1729)

• Added a GitHub Action to automatically comment on pull requests with a code review checklist. (#1729)

• The following functions are now decorated by particle_input(): Hall_parameter, kappa_velocity_1D, kappa_velocity_3D, Maxwellian_1D, Maxwellian_velocity_2D, Maxwellian_velocity_3D, Maxwellian_speed_1D, Maxwellian_speed_2D, Maxwellian_speed_3D, gyroradius, and deBroglie_wavelength. (#1732)

• Changed particle_input() to raise a UnitConversionError when the annotated argument has a physical type other than mass or electrical charge. (#1732)

• Set up issue forms on PlasmaPy’s GitHub repository to replace issue templates. (#1733)

• Made pytest an install requirement instead of a testing requirement. (#1749)

• Added a step to validate CITATION.cff as part of the linters tox testing environment. (#1771)

• Added cffconvert to the testing requirements. (#1771)

• Deleted codemeta.json, which recorded project metadata using the CodeMeta metadata schema. Instead, project metadata is now stored in CITATION.cff which uses the Citation File Format and was created in #1640. See also #676 and #794. (#1772)

• Added the flake8 extensions flake8-use-pathlib, flake8-builtins, and flake8-comments to the testing requirements. (#1777)

• Added tryceratops as a flake8 extension. (#1782)