Sign on

SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service

· Find Similar Abstracts (with default settings below)
· Electronic Refereed Journal Article (HTML)
· Full Refereed Journal Article (PDF/Postscript)
· arXiv e-print (arXiv:astro-ph/0606589)
· References in the article
· Citations to the Article (15) (Citation History)
· Refereed Citations to the Article
· Also-Read Articles (Reads History)
·
· Translate This Page
Title:
An optimum time-stepping scheme for N-body simulations
Authors:
Zemp, Marcel; Stadel, Joachim; Moore, Ben; Carollo, C. Marcella
Affiliation:
AA(ETH Zurich, Institute of Astronomy, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 16, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland), AB(University Zurich, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland), AC(University Zurich, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland), AD(ETH Zurich, Institute of Astronomy, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 16, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland)
Publication:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 376, Issue 1, pp. 273-286. (MNRAS Homepage)
Publication Date:
03/2007
Origin:
MNRAS
MNRAS Keywords:
methods: N-body simulations, methods: numerical
DOI:
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11427.x
Bibliographic Code:
2007MNRAS.376..273Z

Abstract

We present a new time-stepping criterion for N-body simulations that is based on the true dynamical time of a particle. This allows us to follow the orbits of particles correctly in all environments since it has better adaptivity than previous time-stepping criteria used in N-body simulations. Furthermore, it requires far fewer force evaluations in low-density regions of the simulation and has no dependence on artificial parameters such as, for example, the softening length. This can be orders of magnitude faster than conventional ad hoc methods that employ combinations of acceleration and softening and is ideally suited for hard problems, such as obtaining the correct dynamics in the very central regions of dark matter haloes. We also derive an eccentricity correction for a general leapfrog integration scheme that can follow gravitational scattering events for orbits with eccentricity e -> 1 with high precision. These new approaches allow us to study a range of problems in collisionless and collisional dynamics from few body problems to cosmological structure formation. We present tests of the time-stepping scheme in N-body simulations of two-body orbits with eccentricity e -> 1 (elliptic and hyperbolic), equilibrium haloes and a hierarchical cosmological structure formation run.
Bibtex entry for this abstract   Preferred format for this abstract (see Preferences)
   

Find Similar Abstracts:

Use: Authors
Title
Keywords (in text query field)
Abstract Text
Return: Query Results Return    items starting with number
Query Form
Database: Astronomy
Physics
arXiv e-prints