Numerical Simulation of Astrophysical Processes

Start year
2003
Organizational Unit

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    General
    Description

    Numerical simulation through complex computer codes has been a fundamental tool in physics and technology research for decades. The rapid growth of computing capabilities, coupled with significant advances in numerical mathematics, has made this branch of research accessible to medium-sized research centers, bridging the gap between theoretical and experimental physics. Astrophysics is no exception to this trend. Since the late 1970s, a specialized field known as computational astrophysics has emerged, allowing us to understand a wide range of phenomena that were previously inaccessible to pure theoretical research and to account for previously unexplained observations.

    In recent decades, its primary areas of application have included (magneto)hydrodynamic phenomena and gas dynamics in various cosmic environments. For example, this includes the interiors and atmospheres of stars and planets, the interstellar medium, including magnetohydrodynamics and dynamos, accretion disks, the evolution of planetary nebulae, supernova explosions and remnants, and more. The incorporation of radiative transport equations into numerical simulations, which occurred in past decades, has added greater realism to the study of hydrodynamic processes in stellar photospheres and chromospheres.

    The current project aims to support the development of astrophysical research at the IAC based on the use of large numerical codes that require massively parallel computers and their connection with observational results. The general objective of this project is to perform calculations related to cosmic fluid dynamics and radiative transport. The topics of these calculations will focus on:

    1. Magnetized gas dynamics in the interiors and atmospheres of stars.
    2. Radiation transport and polarization signals in spectral lines based on realistic atomic and molecular models, including Hanle and Zeeman effects.
    3. Comparing theoretical/numerical results with observational data.

    This project is particularly relevant given the increasing involvement of the IAC in national and European supercomputing networks and, more generally, in large-scale supercomputer installation initiatives.

    Principal investigator

    In the following, we highlight the results of our annual year-end summary.

    Throughout the year 2022, partial ionization effects, nonequilibrium ionization effects, and multi-fluids have been one the main blocks of development both from the theoretical and numerical perspective. For instance, a generalization of the the Braginskii 1965 equations has been achieved for a general multi-species plasmas with arbitrary masses and temperatures, and where all of the viscosities and heat fluxes in the model are described by their own evolution equations. This new approach has a crucial advantage that the parallel components along the magnetic field lines do not become unbounded (infinitely large) in regimes of low-collisionallity of interest for this group as, for example, the solar corona (Hunana et al. 2022).  In this thematic block, 2D and 3D simulations, using a two-fluid model that treats the neutral and ionized species as two separate components, have also been performed to analyze the effect that the collisional interaction between both components has on the dynamics of coronal rain, the evolution of the instability of Kelvin-Helmholtz, the propagation of magneto-acoustic waves through the solar chromosphere or the heating of the plasma (Martínez-Gómez et al. 2022a). Another example of the theoretical development with potential numerical applications has been the pursuit of the effects of the ambipolar diffusion in the chromosphere from a more fundamental perspective by means of analytical solutions. The obtained solutions for cases with cylindrical symmetry are shown to constitute a demanding, but nonetheless viable, test for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) codes that incorporate ambipolar diffusion. In addition, detailed tabulated runs of the solutions have been made available public for the community (Moreno-Insertis et al. 2022).  Lastly, nonequilibrium ionization effects of the Hydrogen atom together with the study of the Lyman α effects have been started to study in simple configurations to be applied later in realistic simulations that include the chromosphere.

     

    Improving and testing the capabilities of the available MHD codes in the solar group has been another of the major key developments carried out in 2022. For example, the results obtained by Moreno-Insertis et al. 2022 were used to check that the MHD Bifrost code is able to reproduce the theoretical solutions with sufficient accuracy up to very advanced diffusive times, as well as to explore the asymptotic properties of these theoretical solutions. In addition to that, several changes have been performed in the MANCHA code whose aim was to increase the efficiency and to add new features that will allow the researchers to perform more realistic experiments as well as exploring new research areas. For instance, MANCHA code has been extended to be able to simulate solar simulations up to the corona, adding a new module that efficiently calculates one of the key ingredients in the corona: the thermal conduction (Navarro et al. 2022). The preparation of the MANCHA code for its multi-fluid extension with radiation has also been another working branch concerning the numerical development in 2022. In addition, new equation-of-state and opacity routines have been developed that allow separating the equilibrium background contributions from those treated out of the equilibrium. Besides facing different challenges in solar physics, the huge development brought about in MANCHA is useful to study main sequence cool stars (G,K,M), which contributes to the better understanding of the stellar physics. To accomplish all these tasks, it was necessary not only to carry out numerous scaling tests and numerical experiments in local machines at the IAC, as well as on Supercomputers such as LaPalma, PICASSO, PizDaint, and MareNostrum4; but also to work together with external collaborators.

     

    During 2022, in this project there has also been a focus on different solar atmosphere phenomena and the corresponding comparison with observations. As an illustrative example, Coronal Bright Points (CBPs) have been modeled for the first time with enough realism to unravel the mechanisms that generate them and provide them with energy, being also able to explain different characteristics observed from space satellites. The comparison with observations is through synthetic SDO/AIA, Solar Orbiter EUI-HRI, and IRIS images that have been computed from the numerical experiment performed with the Bifrost code (Nóbrega-Siverio and Moreno-Insertis, 2022). Another example is the combination of 3D numerical experiments with the MoLMH code and forward modelling using Hα line to study transverse kink oscillations in prominence threads. The results contain relevant implications for the field of prominence seismology, showing that the Hα emission can be used to detect the fundamental mode of the oscillations (Martínez-Gómez et al. 2022b). In addition, ground high-resolution observations of ejective phenomena such as surges in the solar atmosphere have been analyzed, finding striking similarities with results obtained from numerical experiments. On top of that, there have also been significant contributions from the members of this project to the further advance of the observations and construction of new telescopes (Quintero et al. 2022) and satellites (De Pontieu et al. 2022, Cheung et al. 2022), using the earned knowledge from the theoretical-numerical experiments. Finally, an exploratory first attempt at understanding the physics of coronal holes and active regions from a global point of view through 2D magnetohydrostatic solutions was performed (Terradas et al. 2022), which will need of further development in the incoming years for comparisons with observations.

     

    Last but not least, state-of-the-art tools such as the ones provided by Machine Learning and Bayesian statistics have been applied to solar atmosphere problems. In this vein, a project to characterize the limits of the k-means methods and its application to solar observations was launched. In addition, new development in radiative transfer codes have being started to use in a preliminary study of machine learning approach to the computations of radiative terms. Development of the application of Bayesian techniques to the comparison of models in seismology of the solar atmosphere continued in 2022, with a review article published that accounts for the main results obtained in the last decade (Arregui 2022a). Moreover, the Bayesian formalism has been successfully applied to the prediction of the amplitude of the solar activity cycle, proposing a new methodology to quantify the goodness of both the prediction and the underlying model (Arregui 2022b).

    Related publications

    Large-amplitude Longitudinal Oscillations Triggered by the Merging of Two Solar Filaments: Observations and Magnetic Field Analysis 2017ApJ...850..143L
    Surges and Si IV Bursts in the Solar Atmosphere: Understanding IRIS and SST Observations through RMHD Experiments 2017ApJ...850..153N
    Intermittent Reconnection and Plasmoids in UV Bursts in the Low Solar Atmosphere 2017ApJ...851L...6R
    Magnetic topological analysis of coronal bright points 2017A&A...606A..46G
    Comparison of Solar Fine Structure Observed Simultaneously in Lyα and Mg ii h 2017ApJ...847..141S
    Dissecting the long-term emission behaviour of the BL Lac object Mrk 421 2017MNRAS.472.3789C
    Two-dimensional Radiative Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Partial Ionization in the Chromosphere. II. Dynamics and Energetics of the Low Solar Atmosphere 2017ApJ...847...36M
    A Si I atomic model for NLTE spectropolarimetric diagnostics of the 10 827 Å line 2017A&A...603A..98S
    Numerical simulations of quiet Sun magnetic fields seeded by the Biermann battery 2017A&A...604A..66K
    Helioseismic holography of simulated sunspots: dependence of the travel time on magnetic field strength and Wilson depression 2017A&A...604A.126F
    High-frequency waves in the corona due to null points 2017A&A...602A..43S
    Dependence of sunspot photospheric waves on the depth of the source of solar p-modes 2017A&A...599L...2F
    Synchrotron emission from the blazar PG 1553+113. An analysis of its flux and polarization variability 2017MNRAS.466.3762R
    On the effects of ion-neutral interactions in solar plasmas 2017PPCF...59a4038K
    Multi-parametric Study of Rising 3D Buoyant Flux Tubes in an Adiabatic Stratification Using AMR 2015ApJ...814....2M
    Model Comparison for the Density Structure across Solar Coronal Waveguides 2015ApJ...811..104A
    On the nature of transverse coronal waves revealed by wavefront dislocations 2015A&A...579A.127L
    Are Tornado-like Magnetic Structures Able to Support Solar Prominence Plasma? 2015ApJ...808L..23L
    The impact of surface dynamo magnetic fields on the solar iron abundance 2015A&A...579A.112S
    Evidence for Evaporation-incomplete Condensation Cycles in Warm Solar Coronal Loops 2015ApJ...807..158F
    Model comparison for the density structure along solar prominence threads 2015A&A...578A.130A
    Wave heating of the solar atmosphere
    Magnetohydrodynamic wave propagation from the subphotosphere to the corona in an arcade-shaped magnetic field with a null point 2015A&A...577A..70S
    Three-dimensional Radiative Transfer Simulations of the Scattering Polarization of the Hydrogen Lyα Line in a Magnetohydrodynamic Model of the Chromosphere–Corona Transition Region 2015ApJ...803...65S
    Height Variation of the Vector Magnetic Field in Solar Spicules 2015ApJ...803L..18O
    Continuum Intensity and [O I] Spectral Line Profiles in Solar 3D Photospheric Models: The Effect of Magnetic Fields 2015ApJ...802...96F
    Synthetic Observations of Wave Propagation in a Sunspot Umbra 2014ApJ...795....9F
    Determination of the cross-field density structuring in coronal waveguides using the damping of transverse waves 2014A&A...565A..78A
    The Tenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2014ApJS..211...17A
    The power spectrum of solar convection flows from high-resolution observations and 3D simulations 2014A&A...563A..93Y
    Twisting solar coronal jet launched at the boundary of an active region 2013A&A...559A...1S
    PORTA: A three-dimensional multilevel radiative transfer code for modeling the intensity and polarization of spectral lines with massively parallel computers 2013A&A...557A.143S
    Thermodynamic fluctuations in solar photospheric three-dimensional convection simulations and observations 2013A&A...557A.109B
    Physical properties of a sunspot chromosphere with umbral flashes 2013A&A...556A.115D
    Improved Search of Principal Component Analysis Databases for Spectro-polarimetric Inversion 2013ApJ...773..180C
    Target Selection for the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) 2013AJ....146...81Z
    Plasma Jets and Eruptions in Solar Coronal Holes: A Three-dimensional Flux Emergence Experiment 2013ApJ...771...20M
    Atmosphere Dynamics of the Active Region NOAA 11024 2013SoPh..284..499K
    Is Magnetic Reconnection the Cause of Supersonic Upflows in Granular Cells? 2013ApJ...768...69B
    Bayesian Analysis of Multiple Harmonic Oscillations in the Solar Corona 2013ApJ...765L..23A

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