Abstract Details
Laboratory Astrophysics and Real Equations of State : The Next Challenges for Astrophysical MHD Simulations
Author: Robert L Carver
Requested Type: Poster Only
Submitted: 2009-04-21 12:49:26
Co-authors: A. Cunningham, P. Hartigan, A. Frank, B. Wilde, J. Foster, R. Coker, P. Rosen
Contact Info:
Rice University
6100 Main St.
Houston, TX 77006
USA
Abstract Text:
Laboratory astrophysics presents a unique challenge to astrophysical magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) codes. This area of research uses laboratory based lasers to generate flows and shocks, which are analogous to phenomena such as the Herbig-Haro (HH) objects associated with stellar formation. These laboratory experiments also provide a valuable code validation tool not available to typical astrophysical codes. Unfortunately, the high density plasmas associated with these laboratory experiments are not well approximated by the idealized gas equations of state (EOS) associated with most astrophysical MHD codes. Instead some type of realistic gas equation of state must be utilized. This paper focuses on AstroBEAR, an Eulerian based code that has 3D, MHD, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), and parallelization capabilities. Since it has already been extensively used to simulate the types of astrophysical flow structures that laboratory experiments are designed to reproduce, it provides a good base code upon which to build a real gas EOS capability for simulating these laboratory experiments. In this paper we will explore some differences between a real EOS and an ideal EOS framework. We will discuss the difficulties associated with incorporating a realistic EOS into an ideal EOS-based code and what changes were necessary to adapt AstroBEAR to a real gas code. We will also show the successful results from our first simulation of a laboratory experiment using AstroBEAR’s real EOS capability. We will compare ideal EOS simulations, real EOS simulations, and experimental results. These comparisons demonstrate that only codes using a real EOS framework can simulate laboratory environments effectively.
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