Mesh-free hydrodynamics in PKDGRAV3 for galaxy formation simulations

Alonso Asensio, Isaac; Dalla Vecchia, Claudio; Potter, Douglas; Stadel, Joachim
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Advertised on:
2
2023
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
2
Citations
5
Refereed citations
5
Description
We extend the state-of-the-art N-body code PKDGRAV3 with the inclusion of mesh-free gas hydrodynamics for cosmological simulations. Two new hydrodynamic solvers have been implemented, the mesh-less finite volume and mesh-less finite mass methods. The solvers manifestly conserve mass, momentum, and energy, and have been validated with a wide range of standard test simulations, including cosmological simulations. We also describe improvements to PKDGRAV3 that have been implemented for performing hydrodynamic simulations. These changes have been made with efficiency and modularity in mind, and provide a solid base for the implementation of the required modules for galaxy formation and evolution physics and future porting to GPUs. The code is released in a public repository, together with the documentation, and all the test simulations presented in this work.
Related projects
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Numerical Astrophysics: Galaxy Formation and Evolution
How galaxies formed and evolved through cosmic time is one of the key questions of modern astronomy and astrophysics. Cosmological time- and length-scales are so large that the evolution of individual galaxies cannot be directly observed. Only through numerical simulations can one follow the emergence of cosmic structures within the current
Claudio
Dalla Vecchia