Glossary

AMR, adaptive mesh refinement
Input / output format
Binary star
Two stars in close orbit
Application
A script that combines modules into a multi-physical simulator.
Code
A computer program to solve or approximate the equations of state of a physical domain. Codes are usually written in Fortran or C/C++. For example ‘sse’ is a code to perform stellar evolution.
Data-model
A single representation model for data of different physical codes.
Dense stellar systems
Interstellar Medium
The matter between the stars in a galaxy.
Evolve
Work out / develop the physical model equations. Usually, small steps in time are taken, the new state of the system is calculated from the previous state.
Galaxy
Star Core
Star Envelope
Gravity Domain
Hydrodynamics
Star
Stellar Evolution
ZAMS, zero age main sequence
Start of the main sequence in the evolution of a star. Stable stage after formation of the star from a collapsing gas cloud
Grid
A collection of identifyable locations or regions (for example a box of interstellar medium with a density, molecular composition). Every value in the collection can be seen as belongin to a specific location (x,y,z point).
Interstellar Cloud
Generic name for an accumulation of gas, plasma and dust. A denser region of the insterstellar medium
Main sequence star
A star that derives its energy from the conversion of hydrogen into helium in its core.
Module
Interface to a code in AMUSE. Also, file containing python definitions. These definitions can be imported into the main Python program
Molecular Cloud
A type of insterstellar cloud whose density and size permits the formation of molecules,
Numerical Experiment
SPH, smoothed particle hydrodynamics
A computational method used for simulating fluid flows
Physical Domain
A region in space, time and objects (stars / gas clouds) that can be described by a set of physical models. A physical domain is a limited description of the physics of a stellar system. For example in the gravity domain the gravitational forces are taken into account but not the evolution of stars or the hydrodynamics of th interstellar medium
Production Code
A code used for modelling stellar systems and described in published articles.
Run
During a run the physical models are evolved to a wanted end state. A run can end when a certain model time has passed. For example, one can run a script until the age is 12 million years.
Set
A collection of identifyable objects (for example all stars in a globular cluster). Every value in the set can be seen as belonging to an object.
Star Cluster
A group of stars. The mean distance between the stars in smaller than the mean distance between stars in the galaxy disks. Two types of star clusters exist: globular clusters, open clusters
Star cluster
Metallicity
Proportion of star matter made up of chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium.
Step
An identifiable stage in a run or evolve. A code can take multiple steps during one evolve step. A step can be the integrator step, force calculation step.
Toy Code
A code with limited accurancy but that is easy to use.
Unit test
Automatic test case for a part of the code. For example one can define a unit tests that checks the result of one method given a specified argument.