arXiv subjects

Inti Pelupessy

Publications and source records attributed to Inti Pelupessy.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

Non-intrusive hierarchical coupling strategies for multi-scale simulations in gravitational dynamics

Hierarchical code coupling strategies make it possible to combine the results of individual numerical solvers into a self-consistent symplectic solution. We explore the possibility of allowing such a coupling strategy to be non-intrusive. In that case, the underlying numerical implementation is not affected by the coupling itself, but its functionality is carried over in the interface. This method is efficient for solving the equations of motion for a self-gravitating system over a wide range of scales. We adopt a dedicated integrator for solving each particular part of the problem and combine the results to a self-consistent solution. In particular, we explore the possibilities of combining the evolution of one or more microscopic systems that are embedded in a macroscopic system. The here presented generalizations of Bridge include higher-order coupling strategies (from the classic 2nd order up to 10th-order), but we also demonstrate how multiple bridges can be nested and how additional processes can be introduced at the bridge time-step to enrich the physics, for example by incorporating dissipative processes. Such augmentation allows for including additional processes in a classic Newtonian N-body integrator without alterations to the underlying code. These additional processes include for example the Yarkovsky effect, dynamical friction or relativistic dynamics. Some of these processes operate on all particles whereas others apply only to a subset. The presented method is non-intrusive in the sense that the underlying methods remain operational without changes to the code (apart from adding the get- and set-functions to enable the bridge operator). As a result, the fundamental integrators continue to operate with their internal time step and preserve their local optimizations and parallelism. ... abridged ...

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2019

Survivability of planetary systems in young and dense star clusters

We perform a simulation using the Astrophysical Multipurpose Software Environment of the Orion Trapezium star cluster in which the evolution of the stars and the dynamics of planetary systems are taken into account. The initial conditions from earlier simulations were selected in which the size and mass distributions of the observed circumstellar disks in this cluster are satisfactorily reproduced. Four, five, or size planets per star were introduced in orbit around the 500 solar-like stars with a maximum orbital separation of 400au. Our study focuses on the production of free-floating planets. A total of 357 become unbound from a total of 2522 planets in the initial conditions of the simulation. Of these, 281 leave the cluster within the crossing timescale of the star cluster; the others remain bound to the cluster as free-floating intra-cluster planets. Five of these free-floating intra-cluster planets are captured at a later time by another star. The two main mechanisms by which planets are lost from their host star, ejection upon a strong encounter with another star or internal planetary scattering, drive the evaporation independent of planet mass of orbital separation at birth. The effect of small perturbations due to slow changes in the cluster potential are important for the evolution of planetary systems. In addition, the probability of a star to lose a planet is independent of the planet mass and independent of its initial orbital separation. As a consequence, the mass distribution of free-floating planets indistinguishable from the mass distribution of planets bound to their host star.

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arXiv2018

The origin of interstellar asteroidal objects like 1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua

We study the origin of the interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua by juxtaposing estimates based on the observations with simulations. We speculate that objects like 'Oumuamua are formed in the debris disc as left over from the star and planet formation process, and subsequently liberated. The liberation process is mediated either by interaction with other stars in the parental star-cluster, by resonant interactions within the planetesimal disc or by the relatively sudden mass loss when the host star becomes a compact object. Integrating backward in time in the Galactic potential together with stars from the Gaia-TGAS catalogue we find that about 1.3Myr ago 'Oumuamua passed the nearby star HIP 17288 within a mean distance of $1.3$pc. By comparing nearby observed L-dwarfs with simulations of the Galaxy we conclude that the kinematics of 'Oumuamua is consistent with relatively young objects of $1.1$--$1.7$Gyr. We just met 'Oumuamua by chance, and with a derived mean Galactic density of $\sim 3\times 10^{5}$ similarly sized objects within 100\,au from the Sun or $\sim 10^{14}$ per cubic parsec we expect about 2 to 12 such visitors per year within 1au from the Sun.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2018

The consequences of a nearby supernova on the early Solar System

If the Sun was born in a relatively compact open cluster, it is quite likely that a massive (10MSun) star was nearby when it exploded in a supernova. The repercussions of a supernova can be rather profound, and the current Solar System may still bear the memory of this traumatic event. The truncation of the Kuiper belt and the tilt of the ecliptic plane with respect to the Sun's rotation axis could be such signatures. We simulated the effect of a nearby supernova on the young Solar System using the Astronomical Multipurpose Software Environment. Our calculations are realized in two subsequent steps in which we study the effect of the supernova irradiation on the circumstellar disk and the effect of the impact of the nuclear blast-wave which arrives a few decades later. We find that the blastwave of our adopted supernova exploding at a distance of $0.15$--$0.40$\,pc and at an angle of $35^\circ$--$65^\circ$ with respect to the angular-momentum axis of the circumsolar disk would induce a misalignment between the Sun's equator and its disk to $5^\circ.6\pm1^\circ.2$, consistent with the current value. The blast of a supernova truncates the disk at a radius between $42$ and $55$\,au, which is consistent with the current edge of the Kuiper belt. For the most favored parameters, the irradiation by the supernova as well as the blast wave heat the majority of the disk to $\sim 1200$\,K, which is sufficiently hot to melt chondrules in the circumstellar disk. The majority of planetary system may have been affected by a nearby supernova, some of its repercussions, such as truncation and tilting of the disk, may still be visible in their current planetary system's topology. The amount of material from the supernova blast wave that is accreted by the circumstellar disk is too small by several orders of magnitude to explain the current abundance of the short live radionuclide $^{26}$Al.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Stellar winds near massive black holes: The case of the S-stars

The Galactic center provides a unique laboratory to study the interaction of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) with its gaseous and stellar environment. Simulations to determine the accretion of stellar winds from the surrounding O-stars onto the black hole have been performed earlier, but in those the presence of the S-star system was ignored. The S-stars are a group of young massive B-stars in relatively close orbits around the black hole. Here we simulate those stars in order to study their contribution to the accretion rate, without taking the more distant and massive O-stars into account. We use the Astrophysical Multi-purpose Software Environment (AMUSE) to combine gravitational physics, stellar evolution and hydrodynamics in a single simulation of the S-stars orbiting the supermassive black hole, and use this framework to determine the amount of gas that is accreted onto the black hole. We find that the accretion rate is sensitive to the wind properties of the S-stars (rate of mass-loss and terminal velocity). Our simulations are consistent with the observed accretion rate of the black hole only if the stars exhibit high wind massloss rates that are comparable with those of evolved 7-10 Myr old stars with masses of M=19-25 M_SUN. This is in contrast with observations that have shown that these stars are rather young, main-sequence B-stars. We therefore conclude that the S-stars cannot account for the accretion rate alone.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters: observations and simulations

The study of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) is a young and promising field of research. Formed by runaway collisions of massive stars in young and dense stellar clusters, intermediate-mass black holes could still be present in the centers of globular clusters, today. Our group investigated the presence of intermediate-mass black holes for a sample of 10 Galactic globular clusters. We measured the inner kinematic profiles with integral-field spectroscopy and determined masses or upper limits of central black holes in each cluster. In combination with literature data we further studied the positions of our results on known black-hole scaling relations (such as M_bh - sigma) and found a similar but flatter correlation for IMBHs. Applying cluster evolution codes, the change in the slope could be explained with the stellar mass loss occurring in clusters in a tidal field over its life time. Furthermore, we present results from several numerical simulations on the topic of IMBHs and integral field units (IFUs). We ran N-body simulations of globular clusters containing IMBHs in a tidal field and studied their effects on mass-loss rates and remnant fractions and showed that an IMBH in the center prevents core collapse and ejects massive objects more rapidly. These simulations were further used to simulate IFU data cubes. For the specific case of NGC 6388 we simulated two different IFU techniques and found that velocity dispersion measurements from individual velocities are strongly biased towards lower values due to blends of neighbouring stars and background light. In addition, we use the Astrophysical Multipurpose Software Environment (AMUSE) to combine gravitational physics, stellar evolution and hydrodynamics to simulate the accretion of stellar winds onto a black hole.

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arXiv2012

Multi-physics simulations using a hierarchical interchangeable software interface

We introduce a general-purpose framework for interconnecting scientific simulation programs using a homogeneous, unified interface. Our framework is intrinsically parallel, and conveniently separates all component numerical modules in memory. This strict separation allows automatic unit conversion, distributed execution of modules on different cores within a cluster or grid, and orderly recovery from errors. The framework can be efficiently implemented and incurs an acceptable overhead. In practice, we measure the time spent in the framework to be less than 1% of the wall-clock time. Due to the unified structure of the interface, incorporating multiple modules addressing the same physics in different ways is relatively straightforward. Different modules may be advanced serially or in parallel. Despite initial concerns, we have encountered relatively few problems with this strict separation between modules, and the results of our simulations are consistent with earlier results using more traditional monolithic approaches. This framework provides a platform to combine existing simulation codes or develop new physical solver codes within a rich "ecosystem" of interchangeable modules.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

Multi-physics simulations using a hierarchical interchangeable software interface

We introduce a general-purpose framework for interconnecting scientific simulation programs using a homogeneous, unified software interface. Our framework is intrinsically parallel, and conveniently separates all components in memory. It performs unit conversion between different modules automatically and defines common data structures to communicate across different codes. We use the framework to simulate embedded star clusters. For this purpose we couple solvers for gravitational dynamics, stellar evolution and hydrodynamics to self consistently resolve the dynamical evolution simultaneousy with the internal nuclear evolution of the stars and the hydrodynamic response of the gas. We find, in contrast to earlier studies, that the survival of a young star cluster depends only weakly on the efficiency of star formation. The main reason for this weak dependency is the asymmetric expulsion of the embedding gas from the cluster.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2008

Simulations of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect from Quasars

Quasar feedback has most likely a substantial but only partially understood impact on the formation of structure in the universe. A potential direct probe of this feedback mechanism is the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect: energy emitted from quasar heats the surrounding intergalactic medium and induce a distortion in the microwave background radiation passing through the region. Here we examine the formation of such hot quasar bubbles using a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation which includes a self-consistent treatment of black hole growth and associated feedback, along with radiative gas cooling and star formation. From this simulation, we construct microwave maps of the resulting Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect around black holes with a range of masses and redshifts. The size of the temperature distortion scales approximately with black hole mass and accretion rate, with a typical amplitude up to a few micro-Kelvin on angular scales around 10 arcseconds. We discuss prospects for the direct detection of this signal with current and future single-dish and interferometric observations, including ALMA and CCAT. These measurements will be challenging, but will allow us to characterize the evolution and growth of supermassive black holes and the role of their energy feedback on galaxy formation.

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arXiv2008

SPHRAY: A Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Ray Tracer for Radiative Transfer

We introduce SPHRAY, a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) ray tracer designed to solve the 3D, time dependent, radiative transfer (RT) equations for arbitrary density fields. The SPH nature of SPHRAY makes the incorporation of separate hydrodynamics and gravity solvers very natural. SPHRAY relies on a Monte Carlo (MC) ray tracing scheme that does not interpolate the SPH particles onto a grid but instead integrates directly through the SPH kernels. Given initial conditions and a description of the sources of ionizing radiation, the code will calculate the non-equilibrium ionization state (HI, HII, HeI, HeII, HeIII, e) and temperature (internal energy/entropy) of each SPH particle. The sources of radiation can include point like objects, diffuse recombination radiation, and a background field from outside the computational volume. The MC ray tracing implementation allows for the quick introduction of new physics and is parallelization friendly. A quick Axis Aligned Bounding Box (AABB) test taken from computer graphics applications allows for the acceleration of the raytracing component. We present the algorithms used in SPHRAY and verify the code by performing all the test problems detailed in the recent Radiative Transfer Comparison Project of Iliev et. al. The Fortran 90 source code for SPHRAY and example SPH density fields are made available on a companion website (www.sphray.org).

astro-ph↗

arXiv2000

The radiation driven winds of rotating B[e] supergiants

We have formulated the momentum equation for sectorial line driven winds from rotating stars including: (a) the oblateness of the star, (b) gravity darkening (von Zeipel effect), (c) conservation of angular momentum, (d) line driving specified by the force multiplier parameters (k, alpha, delta), (e) finite disk correction factors for an oblate star with gravity darkening for both the continuum and the line driving. The equations are solved numerically. We calculated the distribution of the mass flux and the wind velocity from the pole to the equator for the winds of B[e]-supergiants. Rotation decreases the terminal velocity in the equatorial region but hardly affects the wind velocity from the poles; it enhances the mass flux from the poles while the mass flux from the equator remains nearly the same. These effects increase with increasing rotation rates. We also calculated models with a bi-stability jump around 25 000 K, using force multipliers recently calculated with a Monte Carlo technique. In this case the mass flux increases drastically from the pole to the equator and the terminal velocity decreases drastically from pole to equator. This produces a density contrast in the wind rho(equator/pole) of about a factor 10 independent of the rotation rate of the star. We suggest that the observed density contrast of a factor 100 of the disks of B[e] stars may be reached by taking into account the wind compression due to the trajectories of the gas above the critical point towards the equatorial plane.

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