FUSION: a skill-based research agent for publicly obtainable nuclear-physics codes

Abstract

Running an unfamiliar nuclear-physics code is rarely difficult because of the physics alone. One must find and build the program, learn its input conventions, and decide whether a plausible output is actually correct. A general-purpose coding agent helps with the first two tasks but may make the last one harder: it can write an input file that runs with the wrong physical convention. FUSION addresses this problem with code-specific skills. A skill obtains the code from its public source, starts from a verified input, runs and parses the calculation, records known failure modes, and must reproduce a stated benchmark to a stated tolerance before reporting a result. The current release covers twenty codes, spanning optical models and reactions, nuclear structure, fission and statistical models, astrophysics and R-matrix analysis, and heavy-ion transport. It also includes an offline, searchable collection of 61 167 pages derived from the nucl-th literature. User notes and credentials remain outside the public repository. FUSION is available under the MIT license at https://github.com/jinleiphys/FUSION; documentation is at https://vibeinscience.com. Here I describe the design, the checks behind the current release, and one complete calculation from input to comparison with measured data.