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Computational astrophysics is the study of the phenomena that occur in space using computer simulations. This can involve modelling processes that take place over millions of years, such as colliding galaxies or the slow destruction of a star by a black hole. This also includes understanding the high-energy phenomena that take place in stars.
Computer simulations based on the prevailing cosmological model, ΛCDM, reproduce many observed properties of our Universe. But a study of coherent satellite motions in galaxy clusters yields discrepancies that challenge the definition of ‘today’.
A state-of-the-art simulation reveals that the long-lasting 10 MK plasma in solar active regions can be heated by magnetic reconnections driven by continuous flux emergence that repeatedly deposit impulsive heating into the coronal plasma.
A dynamo mechanism similar to that in the Sun can produce the large-scale magnetic field that is needed to drive the relativistic outflows (and short gamma-ray burst) from binary neutron star mergers, according to a numerical relativity simulation.
A three-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic simulation of a tidal disruption event (TDE) flare from disruption to peak emission shows how deterministic predictions of TDE light curves and spectra can be calculated using moving-mesh hydrodynamics algorithms.
A supercomputer simulation shows that the strikingly varied distributions of different galaxy types across the Local Supercluster arise naturally in the standard models of cosmology and galaxy formation.
Computer simulations based on the prevailing cosmological model, ΛCDM, reproduce many observed properties of our Universe. But a study of coherent satellite motions in galaxy clusters yields discrepancies that challenge the definition of ‘today’.
Binary neutron star mergers are complex to understand astrophysically. A small piece of the puzzle may now have been solved using a computationally intensive simulation to explain how short gamma-ray bursts can be launched by a magnetar engine.
Charles Gammie and colleagues wrote the HARM code to tackle the extreme physics close to a spinning black hole. Twenty years later, it is performing a similar task in three dimensions in 1/10,000th of the time.
James Stone started developing Athena in the mid-2000s, building on several years’ work on numerical methods for compressible magnetohydrodynamics in shocks. A couple of incarnations later, AthenaK is ready to face the exascale computing future.
