StarCrash: 3-d Evolution of Self-gravitating Fluid Systems

Abstract

StarCrash is a parallel fortran code based on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) techniques to calculate the 3-d evolution of self-gravitating fluid systems. The code in particularly suited to the study of stellar interactions, such as mergers of binary star systems and stellar collisions. The StarCrash code comes with several important features, including: Several routines which construct the initial conditions appropriate to a wide variety of physical systems

An efficient parallel neighbor-finding algorithm for calculating hydrodynamic quantities

A parallel gravitational field solver based on FFT convolution techniques, which uses the FFTW software libraries

Relaxation Techniques for single stars and synchronized binaries

Three different artificial viscosity treatments to calculate the thermodynamic evolution of the matter

An optional gravitational radiation back-reaction treatment, which calculates the damping force from gravity wave losses to lowest relativistic order in a spatially accurate way