arXiv · astro-ph/9911360
Particle Methods in Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics
Abstract
Particle methods play an important role in the study of a wide variety of astrophysical fluid dynamics problems. The different methods currently in use are all variants of the so-called Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) scheme introduced by Lucy and Gingold & Monaghan more than twenty years ago. This paper presents a complete introduction to SPH in its modern form, and discusses some of the main numerical properties of the scheme. In particular, the convergence properties of SPH are studied, as a function of the number of particles N and the number of interacting neighbors N_n, using a simple analysis based on sound waves. It is shown that consistency of SPH (i.e., convergence towards a physical solution) requires both N -> infinity and N_n -> infinity, with the smoothing length h -> 0, i.e., N_n/N -> 0.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Explore connections, maps & timelines
Frederic A. Rasio. 1999-11-18. Particle Methods in Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1143/ptps.138.609
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.