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S. B{ø}rve, M. Omang, J. Trulsen (Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics)
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) has proven to be a very useful numerical tool in studying a number of widely different astrophysical problems. Still, used on many other types of problems the method faces problems concerning efficiency and accuracy compared to that of modern grid-based methods. Essential to efficiency is maintaining a near-optimal particle distribution and smoothing length profile that reflects the physics of the problem. This means, directing computer resources towards those regions and time intervals where the action is taking place and not being wasted where nothing is happening. In the literature researchers have tried to achieve these goals by combining the Lagrangian nature of the SPH method with a smoothing length profile varying smoothly in space and time.
To make the SPH method better suited for accurately describing a wider range of problems, a scheme containing two novel features is proposed. First, the scheme assumes a piecewise constant smoothing length profile. To avoid substantial errors near steps in the smoothing length profile, alternative forms of the SPH equations of motion is used. Secondly, a predictive attitude towards optimizing the particle distribution is introduced by activating a mass, momentum and internal energy conservation regularization process at intervals. The main challenge faced by the scheme has been to put the newly optimized smoothing length profile into use without severely altering the underlying physics. To achieve this, the entire set of particles is redefined in the process.
The basic ideas behind this scheme is briefly described. Finally, the results from several hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical tests in one and two dimensions are presented. This work is funded by the Research Council of Norway.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: steinar.borve@astro.uio.no