MMAS: Make Me A Star

Abstract

Make Me A Star (MMAS) quickly generates stellar collision remnants and can be used in combination with realistic dynamical simulations of star clusters that include stellar collisions. The code approximates the merger process (including shock heating, hydrodynamic mixing, mass ejection, and angular momentum transfer) with simple algorithms based on conservation laws and a basic qualitative understanding of the hydrodynamics. These simple models agree very well with those from SPH (smoothed particle hydrodynamics) calculations of stellar collisions, and the subsequent stellar evolution of these models also matches closely that of the more accurate hydrodynamic models.