A Multiphysics and Multiscale Software Environment for Modeling Astrophysical Systems

  • Authors:

  • Simon Portegies Zwart;Steve Mcmillan;Breanndán Ó Nualláin;Douglas Heggie;James Lombardi;Piet Hut;Sambaran Banerjee;Houria Belkus;Tassos Fragos;John Fregeau;Michiko Fuji;Evghenii Gaburov;Evert Glebbeek;Derek Groen;Stefan Harfst;Rob Izzard;Mario Jurić;Stephen Justham;Peter Teuben;Joris Bever;Ofer Yaron;Marcel Zemp

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA;University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK;Allegheny College, Meadville, USA;Institute for Advanced Study, , Princeton, USA;Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, , India;Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium;Northwestern University, Evanston IL, USA;Northwestern University, Evanston IL, USA;University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands;University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands;Institute for Advanced Study, , Princeton, USA;University of Oxford, Oxford, UK;University of Maryland, College Park, USA;Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada;Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel;University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, USA

  • Venue:
  • ICCS '08 Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Computational Science, Part II
  • Year:
  • 2008

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.01

Visualization

Abstract

We present MUSE, a software framework for tying together existing computational tools for different astrophysical domains into a single multiphysics, multiscale workload. MUSE facilitates the coupling of existing codes written in different languages by providing inter-language tools and by specifying an interface between each module and the framework that represents a balance between generality and computational efficiency. This approach allows scientists to use combinations of codes to solve highly-coupled problems without the need to write new codes for other domains or significantly alter their existing codes. MUSE currently incorporates the domains of stellar dynamics, stellar evolution and stellar hydrodynamics for a generalized stellar systems workload. MUSE has now reached a "Noah's Ark" milestone, with two available numerical solvers for each domain. MUSE can treat small stellar associations, galaxies and everything in between, including planetary systems, dense stellar clusters and galactic nuclei. Here we demonstrate an examples calculated with MUSE: the merger of two galaxies. In addition we demonstrate the working of MUSE on a distributed computer. The current MUSE code base is publicly available as open source at http://muse.li.