FLYCHK: A Straightforward, General Population Kinetics and Spectrum Modeling Capability

Summary form only given. Plasma spectroscopy is an important component for diagnosis and design of laboratory plasma experiments. The advent of plasma-generation devices such as laboratory and FEL-based X-ray lasers, intense ultra-short-pulse lasers, NIF and powerful Z-pinch machines will provide further impetus to develop fast, accurate plasma spectroscopic techniques. The new generation techniques must address the physical processes important to the production of exotic states of matter - such as warm dense matter, highly transient states of matter, and extremely hot dense matter - to develop an understanding of these novel plasmas. We have developed a simple, but generalized, non-LTE population kinetics and spectrum model that can be employed to study the plasma spectroscopy in most laboratory conditions. This capability, FLYCHK, will provide charge state distributions and synthetic spectra to help experimental design and spectral analysis. FLYCHK is designed with a view to being simple, easy-to-use, fast, and portable while providing a reasonable spectroscopic model for most users. We present the details of FLYCHK and provide examples relevant to several applications: laser-generated plasmas, EUV radiation modeling, EBIT plasmas, XFEL-generated plasmas