1,698 research outputs found

    Simulation techniques for cosmological simulations

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    Modern cosmological observations allow us to study in great detail the evolution and history of the large scale structure hierarchy. The fundamental problem of accurate constraints on the cosmological parameters, within a given cosmological model, requires precise modelling of the observed structure. In this paper we briefly review the current most effective techniques of large scale structure simulations, emphasising both their advantages and shortcomings. Starting with basics of the direct N-body simulations appropriate to modelling cold dark matter evolution, we then discuss the direct-sum technique GRAPE, particle-mesh (PM) and hybrid methods, combining the PM and the tree algorithms. Simulations of baryonic matter in the Universe often use hydrodynamic codes based on both particle methods that discretise mass, and grid-based methods. We briefly describe Eulerian grid methods, and also some variants of Lagrangian smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) methods.Comment: 42 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews, special issue "Clusters of galaxies: beyond the thermal view", Editor J.S. Kaastra, Chapter 12; work done by an international team at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Bern, organised by J.S. Kaastra, A.M. Bykov, S. Schindler & J.A.M. Bleeke

    Hydra: A Parallel Adaptive Grid Code

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    We describe the first parallel implementation of an adaptive particle-particle, particle-mesh code with smoothed particle hydrodynamics. Parallelisation of the serial code, ``Hydra'', is achieved by using CRAFT, a Cray proprietary language which allows rapid implementation of a serial code on a parallel machine by allowing global addressing of distributed memory. The collisionless variant of the code has already completed several 16.8 million particle cosmological simulations on a 128 processor Cray T3D whilst the full hydrodynamic code has completed several 4.2 million particle combined gas and dark matter runs. The efficiency of the code now allows parameter-space explorations to be performed routinely using 64364^3 particles of each species. A complete run including gas cooling, from high redshift to the present epoch requires approximately 10 hours on 64 processors. In this paper we present implementation details and results of the performance and scalability of the CRAFT version of Hydra under varying degrees of particle clustering.Comment: 23 pages, LaTex plus encapsulated figure

    A multidimensional grid-adaptive relativistic magnetofluid code

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    A robust second order, shock-capturing numerical scheme for multi-dimensional special relativistic magnetohydrodynamics on computational domains with adaptive mesh refinement is presented. The base solver is a total variation diminishing Lax-Friedrichs scheme in a finite volume setting and is combined with a diffusive approach for controlling magnetic monopole errors. The consistency between the primitive and conservative variables is ensured at all limited reconstructions and the spatial part of the four velocity is used as a primitive variable. Demonstrative relativistic examples are shown to validate the implementation. We recover known exact solutions to relativistic MHD Riemann problems, and simulate the shock-dominated long term evolution of Lorentz factor 7 vortical flows distorting magnetic island chains.Comment: accepted for publication in Computer Physics Communication

    An adaptive grid refinement strategy for the simulation of negative streamers

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    The evolution of negative streamers during electric breakdown of a non-attaching gas can be described by a two-fluid model for electrons and positive ions. It consists of continuity equations for the charged particles including drift, diffusion and reaction in the local electric field, coupled to the Poisson equation for the electric potential. The model generates field enhancement and steep propagating ionization fronts at the tip of growing ionized filaments. An adaptive grid refinement method for the simulation of these structures is presented. It uses finite volume spatial discretizations and explicit time stepping, which allows the decoupling of the grids for the continuity equations from those for the Poisson equation. Standard refinement methods in which the refinement criterion is based on local error monitors fail due to the pulled character of the streamer front that propagates into a linearly unstable state. We present a refinement method which deals with all these features. Tests on one-dimensional streamer fronts as well as on three-dimensional streamers with cylindrical symmetry (hence effectively 2D for numerical purposes) are carried out successfully. Results on fine grids are presented, they show that such an adaptive grid method is needed to capture the streamer characteristics well. This refinement strategy enables us to adequately compute negative streamers in pure gases in the parameter regime where a physical instability appears: branching streamers.Comment: 46 pages, 19 figures, to appear in J. Comp. Phy

    Block Structured Adaptive Mesh and Time Refinement for Hybrid, Hyperbolic + N-body Systems

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    We present a new numerical algorithm for the solution of coupled collisional and collisionless systems, based on the block structured adaptive mesh and time refinement strategy (AMR). We describe the issues associated with the discretization of the system equations and the synchronization of the numerical solution on the hierarchy of grid levels. We implement a code based on a higher order, conservative and directionally unsplit Godunov's method for hydrodynamics; a symmetric, time centered modified symplectic scheme for collisionless component; and a multilevel, multigrid relaxation algorithm for the elliptic equation coupling the two components. Numerical results that illustrate the accuracy of the code and the relative merit of various implemented schemes are also presented.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figures, JPC in press. Extended the code test section, new convergence tests, several typos corrected. Full resolution version available at http://www.exp-astro.phys.ethz.ch/miniati/charm.pd

    An exact general remeshing scheme applied to physically conservative voxelization

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    We present an exact general remeshing scheme to compute analytic integrals of polynomial functions over the intersections between convex polyhedral cells of old and new meshes. In physics applications this allows one to ensure global mass, momentum, and energy conservation while applying higher-order polynomial interpolation. We elaborate on applications of our algorithm arising in the analysis of cosmological N-body data, computer graphics, and continuum mechanics problems. We focus on the particular case of remeshing tetrahedral cells onto a Cartesian grid such that the volume integral of the polynomial density function given on the input mesh is guaranteed to equal the corresponding integral over the output mesh. We refer to this as "physically conservative voxelization". At the core of our method is an algorithm for intersecting two convex polyhedra by successively clipping one against the faces of the other. This algorithm is an implementation of the ideas presented abstractly by Sugihara (1994), who suggests using the planar graph representations of convex polyhedra to ensure topological consistency of the output. This makes our implementation robust to geometric degeneracy in the input. We employ a simplicial decomposition to calculate moment integrals up to quadratic order over the resulting intersection domain. We also address practical issues arising in a software implementation, including numerical stability in geometric calculations, management of cancellation errors, and extension to two dimensions. In a comparison to recent work, we show substantial performance gains. We provide a C implementation intended to be a fast, accurate, and robust tool for geometric calculations on polyhedral mesh elements.Comment: Code implementation available at https://github.com/devonmpowell/r3
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