Glossary¶
- AMR, adaptive mesh refinement
- Input / output format
- Binary star
- Input / output format
- 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
- Star Core
- Gravity Domain
- Hydrodynamics
- Star
- Stellar Evolution
- ZAMS, zero age main sequence
- Hydrodynamics
- 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.