563 research outputs found
Smooth-Particle Phase Stability with density and density-gradient potentials
Stable fluid and solid particle phases are essential to the simulation of
continuum fluids and solids using Smooth Particle Applied Mechanics. We show
that density-dependent potentials, such as Phi=(1/2)Sum (rho-rho_0)^2, along
with their corresponding constitutive relations, provide a simple means for
characterizing fluids and that a special stabilization potential, Phi=(1/2)Sum
(delrho)^2, not only stabilizes crystalline solid phases (or meshes) but also
provides a surface tension which is missing in the usual
density-dependent-potential approach. We illustrate these ideas for
two-dimensional square, triangular, and hexagonal lattices.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Relativistic Hydrodynamic Flows Using Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Structured Mesh Refinement
Astrophysical relativistic flow problems require high resolution
three-dimensional numerical simulations. In this paper, we describe a new
parallel three-dimensional code for simulations of special relativistic
hydrodynamics (SRHD) using both spatially and temporally structured adaptive
mesh refinement (AMR). We used the method of lines to discretize the SRHD
equations spatially and a total variation diminishing (TVD) Runge-Kutta scheme
for time integration. For spatial reconstruction, we have implemented piecewise
linear method (PLM), piecewise parabolic method (PPM), third order convex
essentially non-oscillatory (CENO) and third and fifth order weighted
essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) schemes. Flux is computed using either
direct flux reconstruction or approximate Riemann solvers including HLL,
modified Marquina flux, local Lax-Friedrichs flux formulas and HLLC. The AMR
part of the code is built on top of the cosmological Eulerian AMR code {\sl
enzo}. We discuss the coupling of the AMR framework with the relativistic
solvers. Via various test problems, we emphasize the importance of resolution
studies in relativistic flow simulations because extremely high resolution is
required especially when shear flows are present in the problem. We also
present the results of two 3d simulations of astrophysical jets: AGN jets and
GRB jets. Resolution study of those two cases further highlights the need of
high resolutions to calculate accurately relativistic flow problems.Comment: 14 pages, 23 figures. A section on 3D GRB jet simulation added.
Accepted by ApJ
SPH Simulations of Counterrotating Disk Formation in Spiral Galaxies
We present the results of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations
of the formation of a massive counterrotating disk in a spiral galaxy. The
current study revisits and extends (with SPH) previous work carried out with
sticky particle gas dynamics, in which adiabatic gas infall and a retrograde
gas-rich dwarf merger were tested as the two most likely processes for
producing such a counterrotating disk. We report on experiments with a cold
primary similar to our Galaxy, as well as a hot, compact primary modeled after
NGC 4138. We have also conducted numerical experiments with varying amounts of
prograde gas in the primary disk, and an alternative infall model (a spherical
shell with retrograde angular momentum). The structure of the resulting
counterrotating disks is dramatically different with SPH. The disks we produce
are considerably thinner than the primary disks and those produced with sticky
particles. The time-scales for counterrotating disk formation are shorter with
SPH because the gas loses kinetic energy and angular momentum more rapidly.
Spiral structure is evident in most of the disks, but an exponential radial
profile is not a natural byproduct of these processes. The infalling gas shells
that we tested produce counterrotating bulges and rings rather than disks. The
presence of a considerable amount of preexisting prograde gas in the primary
causes, at least in the absence of star formation, a rapid inflow of gas to the
center and a subsequent hole in the counterrotating disk. In general, our SPH
experiments yield stronger evidence to suggest that the accretion of massive
counterrotating disks drives the evolution of the host galaxies towards earlier
(S0/Sa) Hubble types.Comment: To appear in ApJ. 20 pages LaTex 2-column with 3 tables, 23 figures
(GIF) available at this site. Complete gzipped postscript preprint with
embedded figures available from http://tarkus.pha.jhu.edu/~thakar/cr3.html (3
Mb
Effects of a Supermassive Black Hole Binary on a Nuclear Gas Disk
We study influence of a galactic central supermassive black hole (SMBH)
binary on gas dynamics and star formation activity in a nuclear gas disk by
making three-dimensional Tree+SPH simulations. Due to orbital motions of SMBHs,
there are various resonances between gas motion and the SMBH binary motion. We
have shown that these resonances create some characteristic structures of gas
in the nuclear gas disk, for examples, gas elongated or filament structures,
formation of gaseous spiral arms, and small gas disks around SMBHs. In these
gaseous dense regions, active star formations are induced. As the result, many
star burst regions are formed in the nuclear region.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
A Density Independent Formulation of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics
The standard formulation of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) assumes
that the local density distribution is differentiable. This assumption is used
to derive the spatial derivatives of other quantities. However, this assumption
breaks down at the contact discontinuity. At the contact discontinuity, the
density of the low-density side is overestimated while that of the high-density
side is underestimated. As a result, the pressure of the low (high) density
side is over (under) estimated. Thus, unphysical repulsive force appears at the
contact discontinuity, resulting in the effective surface tension. This tension
suppresses fluid instabilities. In this paper, we present a new formulation of
SPH, which does not require the differentiability of density. Instead of the
mass density, we adopt the internal energy density (pressure), and its
arbitrary function, which are smoothed quantities at the contact discontinuity,
as the volume element used for the kernel integration. We call this new
formulation density independent SPH (DISPH). It handles the contact
discontinuity without numerical problems. The results of standard tests such as
the shock tube, Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, point like
explosion, and blob tests are all very favorable to DISPH. We conclude that
DISPH solved most of known difficulties of the standard SPH, without
introducing additional numerical diffusion or breaking the exact force symmetry
or energy conservation. Our new SPH includes the formulation proposed by
Ritchie & Thomas (2001) as a special case. Our formulation can be extended to
handle a non-ideal gas easily.Comment: 24 pages, 21 figures. Movies and high resolution figures are
available at http://v1.jmlab.jp/~saitoh/sph/index.htm
Tidal exposure or microhabitats: what determines sandy-beach nematode zonation? A case study of a macrotidal ridge-and-runnel sandy beach in Belgium
Lately, across-shore zonation has been found to be more important in structuring the nematode community of a tropical macrotidal sandy beach than microhabitat heterogeneity. To evaluate whether this zonation pattern applies to a temperate beach, a macrotidal ridge-and-runnels sandy beach in the North Sea was studied. We investigated whether a similar zonation occurs in sandbar and runnel microhabitats, and whether the runnels harbour a different community from the subtidal. Our results indicate that nematode communities from runnel and sandbar habitats are significantly different. In addition, horizontal zonation patterns for nematode communities differ between both habitats. Nematode assemblages from sandbars are divided to lower, middle and upper beach while upper and middle runnels cluster together. The subtidal and upper runnels showed dissimilar nematode assemblages, although runnels showed the same dominant species (Daptonema normandicum), which increases its abundance towards the upper runnels. This study illustrates the importance of microhabitat heterogeneity, which resulted in different zonation patterns across the sandy beach examined. The divergent zonation between sandbars and runnels in the macrotidal temperate sandy beach, compared with the pattern observed for a subtropical sandy beach with similar morphodynamics, indicates that generalizations about nematode distribution patterns should be made with caution
The Chemical Compositions of the Type II Cepheids -- The BL Her and W Vir Variables
Abundance analyses from high-resolution optical spectra are presented for 19
Type II Cepheids in the Galactic field. The sample includes both short-period
(BL Her) and long-period (W Vir) stars. This is the first extensive abundance
analysis of these variables. The C, N, and O abundances with similar spreads
for the BL Her and W Vir show evidence for an atmosphere contaminated with
-process and CN-cycling products. A notable anomaly of the BL Her
stars is an overabundance of Na by a factor of about five relative to their
presumed initial abundances. This overabundance is not seen in the W Vir stars.
The abundance anomalies running from mild to extreme in W Vir stars but not
seen in the BL Her stars are attributed to dust-gas separation that provides an
atmosphere deficient in elements of high condensation temperature, notably Al,
Ca, Sc, Ti, and -process elements. Such anomalies have previously been seen
among RV Tau stars which represent a long-period extension of the variability
enjoyed by the Type II Cepheids. Comments are offered on how the contrasting
abundance anomalies of BL Her and W Vir stars may be explained in terms of the
stars' evolution from the blue horizontal branch.Comment: 41 pages including 11 figures and 4 tables; Accepted for publication
in Ap
A Co-moving Coordinate System for Relativistic Hydrodynamics
The equations of relativistic hydrodynamics are transformed so that steps
forward in time preserves local simultaneity. In these variables, the
space-time coordinates of neighboring points on the mesh are simultaneous
according to co-moving observers. Aside from the time step varying as a
function of the location on the mesh, the local velocity gradient and the local
density then evolve according to non-relativistic equations of motion. Analytic
solutions are found for two one-dimensional cases with constant speed of sound.
One solution has a Gaussian density profile when mapped into the new
coordinates. That solution is analyzed for the effects of longitudinal
acceleration in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC, especially in
regards to two-particle correlation measurements of the longitudinal size
Tidal spin-up of stars in dense stellar cusps around massive black holes
We show that main-sequence stars in dense stellar cusps around massive black
holes are likely to rotate at a significant fraction of the centrifugal breakup
velocity due to spin-up by hyperbolic tidal encounters. We use realistic
stellar structure models to calculate analytically the tidal spin-up in soft
encounters, and extrapolate these results to close and penetrating collisions
using smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We find that the spin-up
falls off only slowly with distance from the black hole because the increased
tidal coupling in slower collisions at larger distances compensates for the
decrease in the stellar density. We apply our results to the stars near the
massive black hole in the Galactic Center. Over their lifetime, ~1 Msol main
sequence stars in the inner 0.3 pc of the Galactic Center are spun-up on
average to ~10%--30% of the centrifugal breakup limit. Such rotation is ~20--60
times higher than is usual for such stars and may affect their subsequent
evolution and their observed properties.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Ap
The mass function
We present the mass functions for different mass estimators for a range of
cosmological models. We pay particular attention to how universal the mass
function is, and how it depends on the cosmology, halo identification and mass
estimator chosen. We investigate quantitatively how well we can relate observed
masses to theoretical mass functions.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, to appear in ApJ
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