CHANGELOG.rst

PlasmaPy v2024.7.0 (2024-07-21)

New Features

• Implemented ~plasmapy.particles.atomic.stopping_power to calculate stopping powers using the NIST's ASTAR and PSTAR data. (:pr:`2555`)
• Added ionization energy data from NIST to the |Particle| class. This can now be accessed using the ~plasmapy.particles.particle_class.Particle.ionization_energy attribute from the |Particle| class. (:pr:`2657`)
• Renamed the ~plasmapy.particles.particle_class.Particle.binding_energy attribute of |Particle| to ~plasmapy.particles.particle_class.Particle.nuclear_binding_energy to avoid confusion with ~plasmapy.particles.particle_class.Particle.electron_binding_energy. (:pr:`2693`)
• Added electron binding energy data, relying on ionization energy data from NIST, to the |Particle| class. This can now be accessed using the ~plasmapy.particles.particle_class.Particle.electron_binding_energy attribute from the |Particle| class. (:pr:`2693`)
• Added a return_interpolator keyword to ~plasmapy.particles.atomic.stopping_power to allow the user to specify the return of an interpolator function (~scipy.interpolate.CubicSpline under the hood). (:pr:`2712`)
• Added the ~plasmapy.formulary.collisions.misc.Bethe_stopping function to the ~plasmapy.formulary.collisions subpackage. (:pr:`2712`)
• Added the ability to enable particle stopping in the |ParticleTracker|. (:pr:`2712`)

Documentation Improvements

• Updated the |coding guide| with information on |static type checking| with |mypy|. (:pr:`2454`)
• Updated the section in the |coding guide| about requirements and dependencies. (:pr:`2720`)
• Updated docstrings in plasmapy.dispersion. (:pr:`2735`)
• Updated docstrings in plasmapy.formulary.collisions. (:pr:`2736`)
• Updated docstrings in plasmapy.formulary. (:pr:`2737`)
• Updated docstrings for plasmapy.diagnostics and plasmapy.plasma.grids. (:pr:`2738`)
• Added :file:`README.md` files in the :file:`src/plasmapy`, :file:`tests`, :file:`docs`, :file:`type_stubs`, :file:`.github/content`, :file:`.github/scripts`, and :file:`.github/workflows` directories. The contents of these files now appear as local documentation for each of these directories in |PlasmaPy's GitHub repository|. (:pr:`2742`)
• Automated creation of the index file for the release changelogs. The page for unreleased changes is included in the table of contents only if there are unreleased changes. (:pr:`2754`)
• Re-wrote the "Test independence and parametrization" section of the |testing guide| to use extremely simple math. (:pr:`2763`)
• Added functionality to generate a table of global substitutions in the |documentation guide|. (:pr:`2766`)
• Renamed :file:`docs/_cff_to_rst.py` to :file:`docs/_author_list_from_cff.py`. (:pr:`2766`)
• Based the version of PlasmaPy that gets included in development documentation builds on the current date and most recent git hash. (:pr:`2775`)
• Merged the release guide into the |coding guide|. (:pr:`2777`)
• Added a new page to the |contributor guide| on |many ways to contribute| to an open source project. (:pr:`2777`)
• Updated the |coding guide|, |testing guide|, and |documentation guide| within the |contributor guide|. (:pr:`2777`)
• Moved the |contributor guide| section on example Jupyter notebooks from the |coding guide| to the |documentation guide|. (:pr:`2777`)
• Added sphinxemoji as a |Sphinx| extension. (:pr:`2781`)

Backwards Incompatible Changes

• Added a __str__ method to the |CustomParticle| class that returns the symbol of the particle if provided, and otherwise falls back to using __repr__. (:pr:`2702`)
• Changed default keyword argument for the fraction_exited_threshold in ~plasmapy.diagnostics.charged_particle_radiography.synthetic_radiography.Tracker and ~plasmapy.simulation.particle_tracker.termination_conditions.AllParticlesOffGridTerminationCondition to correspond with the fraction of particles that have entered and subsequently exited the grids. Previously this keyword was a misnomer, causing the simulation to instead terminate when the specified fraction of particles remaining on the grids was less than or equal to the provided fraction_exited_threshold. (:pr:`2712`)
• Convert particle to a required argument of the ~plasmapy.simulation.particle_tracker.particle_tracker.ParticleTracker.load_particles method of |ParticleTracker|. (:pr:`2746`)

Bug Fixes

• • Enabled |validate_quantities| to be compatible with postponed evaluation of annotations (see PEP 563). (:pr:`2479`) (:pr:`2506`)
• Changed the |charge number| (Z) dependence of the ion contribution to the optical Thomson scattering spectral density function in ~plasmapy.diagnostics.thomson.spectral_density_lite from Z to z^2 / \bar{z} to match Eq. 5.1.2 and following equations in :cite:t:`sheffield:2011`. The result is a small change in the ion acoustic wave spectrum for plasmas with multiple ion species. (:pr:`2699`)
• Add axes removed by numpy.squeeze to arrays in ~plasmapy.dispersion.analytical.mhd_waves_ (:pr:`2715`)

Internal Changes and Refactorings

• Converted the tox environment for regenerating the requirements files used in continuous integration checks to |Nox|. (:pr:`2664`)
• Created a parametrized |Nox| session to run tests. (:pr:`2681`)
• Added |Nox| sessions to test importing PlasmaPy, validating :file:`CITATION.cff`, and building a source distribution and wheel. (:pr:`2682`)
• Switched the GitHub workflows for running tests from using tox environments to using |Nox| sessions. (:pr:`2685`)
• Added pytest-filter-subpackage to the tests dependency set. This dependency enables us to run, for example, pytest -P particles to invoke tests for plasmapy.particles. (:pr:`2688`)
• Added |Nox| sessions to run tests and build documentation against unreleased versions of major dependencies. (:pr:`2694`)
• Deleted :file:`tox.ini`, since all tox environments defined therein have been converted to |Nox| sessions. (:pr:`2694`)
• Removed :file:`requirements.txt`, along with the requirements files in :file:`ci_requirements/` that were used in tox environments that have since been replaced with |Nox| sessions. (:pr:`2694`)
• Switched over weekly tests to use |Nox| sessions rather than tox environments. (:pr:`2694`)
• Added the lint and manifest sessions for |Nox| to run |pre-commit| on all files and verify :file:`MANIFEST.in` with check-manifest, respectively. (:pr:`2695`)
• Added a |Nox| session that invokes autotyping to automatically add |type hint annotations|, using either the --safe or --aggressive options. (:pr:`2696`)
• Added typos as a |pre-commit| hook to perform spellchecking. (:pr:`2700`)
• Added a condition to check if the GitHub API can be reached to be used by the ~plasmapy.utils.data.downloader.Downloader object. (:pr:`2710`)
• Applied |type hint annotations| using autotyping, and made other updates to type hint annotations and docstrings. (:pr:`2728`)
• Added |type hint annotations| to plasmapy.utils.roman. (:pr:`2733`)
• Added |type hint annotations| to plasmapy.utils._units_helpers. (:pr:`2734`)
• Added a |Nox| session for building the changelog. (:pr:`2744`)
• Added an experimental |Nox| session for adding |type hint annotations| using MonkeyType. This session creates a database of variable types from running pytest, and then applies the observed types to a particular module. (:pr:`2747`)
• Updated |Nox| sessions, including docstrings and troubleshooting messages. (:pr:`2750`)
• Enabled tests to pass with numpy == 2.0.0. (:pr:`2772`)

Additional Changes

• Refactored ~plasmapy.diagnostics.charged_particle_radiography.synthetic_radiography.Tracker to use |ParticleTracker|. (:pr:`2704`)
• Included :file:`src/plasmapy/_version.py` in :file:`MANIFEST.in`. This file is automatically generated using setuptools_scm, but is necessary for the version to be correct in the titles of pages in development documentation builds. (:pr:`2756`)
• Updated the comment that gets posted to new pull requests via a GitHub workflow. (:pr:`2765`)