54 research outputs found
Integrated properties of mass segregated star clusters
In this contribution we study integrated properties of dynamically segregated
star clusters. The observed core radii of segregated clusters can be 50%
smaller than the ``true'' core radius. In addition, the measured radius in the
red filters is smaller than those measured in blue filters. However, these
difference are small (), making it observationally challenging to
detect mass segregation in extra-galactic clusters based on such a comparison.
Our results follow naturally from the fact that in nearly all filters most of
the light comes from the most massive stars. Therefore, the observed surface
brightness profile is dominated by stars of similar mass, which are centrally
concentrated and have a similar spatial distribution.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures. To appear in proceedings of the 246th IAU
symposium on "Dynamical evolution of dense stellar systems"; acknowledgements
include
Mixing in massive stellar mergers
The early evolution of dense star clusters is possibly dominated by close
interactions between stars, and physical collisions between stars may occur
quite frequently. Simulating a stellar collision event can be an intensive
numerical task, as detailed calculations of this process require hydrodynamic
simulations in three dimensions. We present a computationally inexpensive
method in which we approximate the merger process, including shock heating,
hydrodynamic mixing and mass loss, with a simple algorithm based on
conservation laws and a basic qualitative understanding of the hydrodynamics of
stellar mergers. The algorithm relies on Archimedes' principle to dictate the
distribution of the fluid in the stable equilibrium situation. We calibrate and
apply the method to mergers of massive stars, as these are expected to occur in
young and dense star clusters. We find that without the effects of microscopic
mixing, the temperature and chemical composition profiles in a collision
product can become double-valued functions of enclosed mass. Such an unphysical
situation is mended by simulating microscopic mixing as a post-collision
effect. In this way we find that head-on collisions between stars of the same
spectral type result in substantial mixing, while mergers between stars of
different spectral type, such as type B and O stars (10 and 40\msun
respectively), are subject to relatively little hydrodynamic mixing.Comment: Accepted by MNRA
The influence of gas expulsion and initial mass-segregation on the stellar mass-function of globular star clusters
Recently de Marchi, Paresce & Pulone (2007) studied a sample of twenty
globular clusters and found that all clusters with high concentrations have
steep stellar mass-functions while clusters with low concentration have
comparatively shallow mass-functions. No globular clusters were found with a
flat mass-function and high concentration. This seems curious since more
concentrated star clusters are believed to be dynamically more evolved and
should have lost more low-mass stars via evaporation, which would result in a
shallower mass-function in the low-mass part.
We show that this effect can be explained by residual-gas expulsion from
initially mass-segregated star clusters, and is enhanced further through
unresolved binaries. If gas expulsion is the correct mechanism to produce the
observed trend, then observation of these parameters would allow to constrain
cluster starting conditions such as star formation efficiency and the
time-scale of gas expulsion.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS, 10 pages, 6 figure
The Living Application: a Self-Organising System for Complex Grid Tasks
We present the living application, a method to autonomously manage
applications on the grid. During its execution on the grid, the living
application makes choices on the resources to use in order to complete its
tasks. These choices can be based on the internal state, or on autonomously
acquired knowledge from external sensors. By giving limited user capabilities
to a living application, the living application is able to port itself from one
resource topology to another. The application performs these actions at
run-time without depending on users or external workflow tools. We demonstrate
this new concept in a special case of a living application: the living
simulation. Today, many simulations require a wide range of numerical solvers
and run most efficiently if specialized nodes are matched to the solvers. The
idea of the living simulation is that it decides itself which grid machines to
use based on the numerical solver currently in use. In this paper we apply the
living simulation to modelling the collision between two galaxies in a test
setup with two specialized computers. This simulation switces at run-time
between a GPU-enabled computer in the Netherlands and a GRAPE-enabled machine
that resides in the United States, using an oct-tree N-body code whenever it
runs in the Netherlands and a direct N-body solver in the United States.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures, accepted by IJHPC
Star cluster evolution in barred disc galaxies. I. Planar periodic orbits
The dynamical evolution of stellar clusters is driven to a large extent by
their environment. Several studies so far have considered the effect of tidal
fields and their variations, such as, e.g., from giant molecular clouds,
galactic discs, or spiral arms. In this paper we will concentrate on a tidal
field whose effects on star clusters have not yet been studied, namely that of
bars. We present a set of direct N-body simulations of star clusters moving in
an analytic potential representing a barred galaxy. We compare the evolution of
the clusters moving both on different planar periodic orbits in the barred
potential and on circular orbits in a potential obtained by axisymmetrising its
mass distribution. We show that both the shape of the underlying orbit and its
stability have strong impact on the cluster evolution as well as the morphology
and orientation of the tidal tails and the sub-structures therein. We find that
the dissolution time-scale of the cluster in our simulations is mainly
determined by the tidal forcing along the orbit and, for a given tidal forcing,
only very little by the exact shape of the gravitational potential in which the
cluster is moving.Comment: 15 pages, 17 figures, 5 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS.
Complementary movies can be be found at this http URL
http://lam.oamp.fr/research/dynamique-des-galaxies/scientific-results/star-cluster-evolution
PyCOOL - a Cosmological Object-Oriented Lattice code written in Python
There are a number of different phenomena in the early universe that have to
be studied numerically with lattice simulations. This paper presents a graphics
processing unit (GPU) accelerated Python program called PyCOOL that solves the
evolution of scalar fields in a lattice with very precise symplectic
integrators. The program has been written with the intention to hit a sweet
spot of speed, accuracy and user friendliness. This has been achieved by using
the Python language with the PyCUDA interface to make a program that is easy to
adapt to different scalar field models. In this paper we derive the symplectic
dynamics that govern the evolution of the system and then present the
implementation of the program in Python and PyCUDA. The functionality of the
program is tested in a chaotic inflation preheating model, a single field
oscillon case and in a supersymmetric curvaton model which leads to Q-ball
production. We have also compared the performance of a consumer graphics card
to a professional Tesla compute card in these simulations. We find that the
program is not only accurate but also very fast. To further increase the
usefulness of the program we have equipped it with numerous post-processing
functions that provide useful information about the cosmological model. These
include various spectra and statistics of the fields. The program can be
additionally used to calculate the generated curvature perturbation. The
program is publicly available under GNU General Public License at
https://github.com/jtksai/PyCOOL . Some additional information can be found
from http://www.physics.utu.fi/tiedostot/theory/particlecosmology/pycool/ .Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures; some typos correcte
How well do STARLAB and NBODY compare? II: Hardware and accuracy
Most recent progress in understanding the dynamical evolution of star
clusters relies on direct N-body simulations. Owing to the computational
demands, and the desire to model more complex and more massive star clusters,
hardware calculational accelerators, such as GRAPE special-purpose hardware or,
more recently, GPUs (i.e. graphics cards), are generally utilised. In addition,
simulations can be accelerated by adjusting parameters determining the
calculation accuracy (i.e. changing the internal simulation time step used for
each star).
We extend our previous thorough comparison (Anders et al. 2009) of basic
quantities as derived from simulations performed either with STARLAB/KIRA or
NBODY6. Here we focus on differences arising from using different hardware
accelerations (including the increasingly popular graphic card
accelerations/GPUs) and different calculation accuracy settings.
We use the large number of star cluster models (for a fixed stellar mass
function, without stellar/binary evolution, primordial binaries, external tidal
fields etc) already used in the previous paper, evolve them with STARLAB/KIRA
(and NBODY6, where required), analyse them in a consistent way and compare the
averaged results quantitatively. For this quantitative comparison, we apply the
bootstrap algorithm for functional dependencies developed in our previous
study.
In general we find very high comparability of the simulation results,
independent of the used computer hardware (including the hardware accelerators)
and the used N-body code. For the tested accuracy settings we find that for
reduced accuracy (i.e. time step at least a factor 2.5 larger than the standard
setting) most simulation results deviate significantly from the results using
standard settings. The remaining deviations are comprehensible and explicable.Comment: 14 pages incl. 3 pages with figures and 4 pages of tables (analysis
results), MNRAS in pres
Models of Individual Blue Stragglers
This chapter describes the current state of models of individual blue
stragglers. Stellar collisions, binary mergers (or coalescence), and partial or
ongoing mass transfer have all been studied in some detail. The products of
stellar collisions retain memory of their parent stars and are not fully mixed.
Very high initial rotation rates must be reduced by an unknown process to allow
the stars to collapse to the main sequence. The more massive collision products
have shorter lifetimes than normal stars of the same mass, while products
between low mass stars are long-lived and look very much like normal stars of
their mass. Mass transfer can result in a merger, or can produce another binary
system with a blue straggler and the remnant of the original primary. The
products of binary mass transfer cover a larger portion of the colour-magnitude
diagram than collision products for two reasons: there are more possible
configurations which produce blue stragglers, and there are differing
contributions to the blended light of the system. The effects of rotation may
be substantial in both collision and merger products, and could result in
significant mixing unless angular momentum is lost shortly after the formation
event. Surface abundances may provide ways to distinguish between the formation
mechanisms, but care must be taking to model the various mixing mechanisms
properly before drawing strong conclusions. Avenues for future work are
outlined.Comment: Chapter 12, in Ecology of Blue Straggler Stars, H.M.J. Boffin, G.
Carraro & G. Beccari (Eds), Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Springe
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