6. Exporting

The results live in the cache; your other tools want files. --output (-o) writes the papers a search shows, in the format the extension names, and you can repeat it:

$ mosaic search "hall thruster particle-in-cell" --cached --output refs.bib --output refs.csv
Searching local cache for 'hall thruster particle-in-cell'…
 #     Title                             Authors       Year   DOI                 Source         OA     PDF       Cited
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 1     Reduced-order particle-in-cell    Maryam Reza   2023   10.1088/1361-6595   arXiv          yes    ✓             –
       simulations of a high-power       et al.               /acdea3
  ⋮  (98 lines not shown)
33 result(s)
Saved: refs.bib
Saved: refs.csv

Extension	Format	For
.bib	BibTeX: @article for journal papers, @misc for preprints	LaTeX, JabRef, Zotero
.ris	RIS	EndNote, Mendeley, RefWorks, Zotero
.csv	one row per paper, authors separated by ;	spreadsheets
.json	an array of paper objects	scripts
.md	one Markdown table	a README, a wiki
.markdown	one Markdown section per paper, with the abstract	notes

$ head -n 14 refs.bib
@article{Reza2023Reducedorder,
  title          = {{Reduced-order particle-in-cell simulations of a high-power magnetically shielded Hall thruster}},
  author         = {Maryam Reza and Farbod Faraji and Aaron Knoll and Antonio Piragino and Tommaso Andreussi and Tommaso Misuri},
  year           = {2023},
  journal        = {{Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 32 065016 (2023)}},
  doi            = {10.1088/1361-6595/acdea3},
  eprint         = {2304.06563v1},
  eprinttype     = {arXiv},
  abstract       = {{High-power magnetically shielded Hall thrusters have recently emerged to meet the needs of the next-generation space missions. Even though a few such thrusters are currently undergoing their late-stage development campaigns, many unanswered questions yet exist concerning the behavior and evolution of the plasma in these large-size thrusters that feature an unconventional magnetic field topology. Noting the complex, multi-dimensional nature of plasma processes in Hall thrusters, high-fidelity particle-in-cell simulations are optimal tools to study the intricate plasma behavior. Nonetheless, the significant computational cost of traditional PIC schemes renders simulating high-power thrusters without any physics-altering speed-up factors unfeasible. Thus, in this article, we demonstrate the applicability of the novel reduced-order PIC scheme for a cost-efficient, self-consistent study of the high-power Hall thrusters by performing simulations of a 20 kW magnetically shielded Hall thruster along the axial-azimuthal and radial-azimuthal coordinates. The axial-azimuthal simulations are performed for three operating conditions in a rather simplified representation of the thruster's inherently 3D configuration. Nevertheless, we resolved self-consistently an unprecedented 650 us of the discharge evolution without any ad-hoc electron mobility model, capturing several breathing cycles and approximating the experimental performance parameters with an accuracy of 70 to 80 % across the operating conditions. The radial-azimuthal simulations casted further light on the evolution of the azimuthal instabilities and the resulting variations in the electrons' cross-field mobility and the plasma-wall interactions. Particularly, we observed the development of a long-wavelength, relatively low-frequency wave mode near the exit plane of the thruster's channel that induces a notable electron transport.}},
  pdf            = {https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.06563v1},
  url            = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.06563v1},
  note           = {Open Access}
}

A cite key joins the first author's family name, the year and the first word of the title. arXiv papers get eprint and eprinttype, open-access papers a pdf field and note = {Open Access}. --output works the same with a live search, with --cached as here, and with mosaic similar.

One citation

$ mosaic cite 10.3389/fphy.2019.00140 --style apa
Asadi, Z., Taccogna, F., & Sharifian, M. (2019). Numerical Study of Electron Cyclotron Drift Instability: Application to Hall Thruster. Frontiers in Physics, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2019.00140

mosaic cite formats one paper by DOI. bibtex, the default, is built from the cache or from Crossref's metadata; apa, mla, chicago, harvard and vancouver come from Crossref's formatter, so they need the network. --copy (-c) also puts the text on the clipboard.

JSON for scripts

--json prints the results as one JSON document on standard output, in place of the table, ready for jq:

$ mosaic search "hall thruster particle-in-cell" --cached --json | jq -r '.papers[] | "\(.year)  \(.doi)"' | head -n 5
2023  10.1088/1361-6595/acdea3
2023  10.1063/5.0143292
2022  10.48550/arXiv.2206.13892
2022  10.1063/5.0090853
2023  10.3390/aerospace10010044

The document holds status, query, count, papers and errors (the sources that failed); Agents and Claude Code describes every field.

Obsidian notes

Point mosaic at a vault once, then add --obsidian to a search:

mosaic config --obsidian-vault ~/vault

$ mosaic search "hall thruster particle-in-cell" --cached --obsidian
Searching local cache for 'hall thruster particle-in-cell'…
 #     Title                             Authors       Year   DOI                 Source         OA     PDF       Cited
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 1     Reduced-order particle-in-cell    Maryam Reza   2023   10.1088/1361-6595   arXiv          yes    ✓             –
       simulations of a high-power       et al.               /acdea3
  ⋮  (98 lines not shown)
33 result(s)
Obsidian: 33 note(s) added →
~/vault/papers

$ ls ~/vault/papers | head -n 3
2007_Igor_Kinetic_effects_in_a_Hall_thruster_discharge.md
2007_Lee_Two-Dimensional_Particle-in-Cell_Simulation_of_a_Hall_Thrust.md
2008_Shannon_Hybrid_Particle-in-Cell_Erosion_Modeling_of_Two_Hall_Thruste.md

Each paper becomes a note in papers/ (--obsidian-folder changes it): YAML front matter with title, authors, year, DOI, journal, links and tags, then the abstract. A note that exists is skipped, so your annotations stay. Obsidian shows a full note and the options.

Zotero

--zotero sends the results to your Zotero library: to the desktop app through its local API while Zotero runs, or through the web API with a key (mosaic config --zotero-key). --zotero-collection NAME files them in a collection, created if missing; with --download, the local API also links the PDFs.

mosaic search "hall thruster particle-in-cell" --cached --zotero --zotero-collection "Hall thrusters"

Zotero covers the setup.

What you learned

--output in six formats, mosaic cite, --json, --obsidian, --zotero. Reference: search, cite.

Next: 7. Following a field.