Spectre

What is SpECTRE?

SpECTRE is an open-source code for multi-scale, multi-physics problems in astrophysics and gravitational physics. It is based on high-order spectral finite element methods and massive parallelism. In the future, we hope that it can be applied to problems across discipline boundaries in fluid dynamics, geoscience, plasma physics, nuclear physics, and engineering. It runs at petascale and is designed for future exascale computers.

SpECTRE is being developed in support of our collaborative Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) research program into the multi-messenger astrophysics of black hole and neutron star mergers, core-collapse supernovae, and gamma-ray bursts.

Gallery

For an overview of some of SpECTRE's features and some simulations performed with SpECTRE, visit the gallery:

• Gallery: https://spectre-code.org/gallery

Documentation

You find instructions on installing and running the code, as well as many guides and tutorials, in the documentation:

• Documentation: https://spectre-code.org/

Citing SpECTRE

Please cite SpECTRE in any publications that make use of its code or data. Cite the latest version that you use in your publication. The DOI for this version is:

• DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19373346

You can cite this BibTeX entry in your publication:

<!-- The BibTeX entry below is updated automatically at releases --> <!-- BIBTEX ENTRY -->

@software{spectrecode,
    author = "Deppe, Nils and Throwe, William and Kidder, Lawrence E. and Vu,
Nils L. and Nelli, Kyle C. and Armaza, Crist\'obal and Bonilla, Marceline S. and
H\'ebert, Fran\c{c}ois and Kim, Yoonsoo and Kumar, Prayush and Lovelace,
Geoffrey and Macedo, Alexandra and Moxon, Jordan and O'Shea, Eamonn and
Pfeiffer, Harald P. and Scheel, Mark A. and Teukolsky, Saul A. and Wittek,
Nikolas A. and others",
    title = "\texttt{SpECTRE v2026.04.01}",
    version = "2026.04.01",
    publisher = "Zenodo",
    doi = "10.5281/zenodo.19373346",
    url = "https://spectre-code.org",
    howpublished =
"\href{https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19373346}{10.5281/zenodo.19373346}",
    license = "MIT",
    year = "2026",
    month = "4"
}

<!-- BIBTEX ENTRY -->

To aid reproducibility of your scientific results with SpECTRE, we recommend you keep track of the version(s) you used and report this information in your publication. We also recommend you supply the YAML input files and, if appropriate, any additional C++ code you wrote to compile SpECTRE executables as supplemental material to the publication.

See our publication policy for more information.

Logos and visuals

You can find logos and other visuals (e.g. to put on slides) in various formats, colors, and sizes here:

• Logos and visuals