Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userThe Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and smoothed particle hydrodynamics
255
0
0.0
(
0
)
Authors
Terrence S. Tricco
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
There has been interest in recent years to assess the ability of astrophysical hydrodynamics codes to correctly model the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), in particular, has received significant attention, though there has yet to be a clear demonstration that SPH yields converged solutions that are in agreement with other methods. We have performed SPH simulations of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability using the test problem put forward by Lecoanet et al (2016). We demonstrate that the SPH solutions converge to the reference solution in both the linear and non-linear regimes. Quantitative convergence in the strongly non-linear regime is achieved by using a physical Navier-Stokes viscosity and thermal conductivity. We conclude that standard SPH with an artificial viscosity can correctly capture the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.
rate research
Read More
We perform simulations of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). The instability is studied both in the linear and strongly non-linear regimes. The smooth, well-posed initial conditions of Lecoanet et al. (2016) are used, along with an explicit Navier-Stokes viscosity and thermal conductivity to enforce the evolution in the non-linear regime. We demonstrate convergence to the reference solution using SPH. The evolution of the vortex structures and the degree of mixing, as measured by a passive scalar `colour field, match the reference solution. Tests with an initial density contrast produce the correct qualitative behaviour. The L2 error of the SPH calculations decreases as the resolution is increased. The primary source of error is numerical dissipation arising from artificial viscosity, and tests with reduced artificial viscosity have reduced L2 error. A high-order smoothing kernel is needed in order to resolve the initial velocity amplitude of the seeded mode and inhibit excitation of spurious modes. We find that standard SPH with an artificial viscosity has no difficulty in correctly modelling the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and yields convergent solutions.
In this paper we investigate whether Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), equipped with artificial conductivity, is able to capture the physics of density/energy discontinuities in the case of the so-called shearing layers test, a test for examining Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instabilities. We can trace back each failure of SPH to show KH rolls to two causes: i) shock waves travelling in the simulation box and ii) particle clumping, or more generally, particle noise. The probable cause of shock waves is the Local Mixing Instability (LMI), previously identified in the literature. Particle noise on the other hand is a problem because it introduces a large error in the SPH momentum equation. We also investigate the role of artificial conductivity (AC). Including AC is necessary for the long-term behavior of the simulation (e.g. to get $lambda=1/2, 1$ KH rolls). In sensitive hydrodynamical simulations great care is however needed in selecting the AC signal velocity, with the default formulation leading to too much energy diffusion. We present new signal velocities that lead to less diffusion. The effects of the shock waves and of particle disorder become less important as the time-scale of the physical problem (for the shearing layers problem: lower density contrast and higher Mach numbers) decreases. At the resolution of current galaxy formation simulations mixing is probably not important. However, mixing could become crucial for next-generation simulations.
We present a thorough numerical study on the MRI using the smoothed particle magnetohydrodynamics method (SPMHD) with the geometric density average force expression (GDSPH). We perform shearing box simulations with different initial setups and a wide range of resolution and dissipation parameters. We show, for the first time, that MRI with sustained turbulence can be simulated successfully with SPH, with results consistent with prior work with grid-based codes. In particular, for the stratified boxes, our simulations reproduce the characteristic butterfly diagram of the MRI dynamo with saturated turbulence for at least 100 orbits. On the contrary, traditional SPH simulations suffer from runaway growth and develop unphysically large azimuthal fields, similar to the results from a recent study with mesh-less methods. We investigated the dependency of MRI turbulence on the numerical Prandtl number in SPH, focusing on the unstratified, zero net-flux case. We found that turbulence can only be sustained with a Prandtl number larger than $sim$2.5, similar to the critical values of physical Prandtl number found in grid-code simulations. However, unlike grid-based codes, the numerical Prandtl number in SPH increases with resolution, and for a fixed Prandtl number, the resulting magnetic energy and stresses are independent of resolution. Mean-field analyses were performed on all simulations, and the resulting transport coefficients indicate no $alpha$-effect in the unstratified cases, but an active $alphaOmega$ dynamo and a diamagnetic pumping effect in the stratified medium, which are generally in agreement with previous studies. There is no clear indication of a shear-current dynamo in our simulation, which is likely to be responsible for a weaker mean-field growth in the tall, unstratified, zero net-flux simulation.
We present Phantom, a fast, parallel, modular and low-memory smoothed particle hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics code developed over the last decade for astrophysical applications in three dimensions. The code has been developed with a focus on stellar, galactic, planetary and high energy astrophysics and has already been used widely for studies of accretion discs and turbulence, from the birth of planets to how black holes accrete. Here we describe and test the core algorithms as well as modules for magnetohydrodynamics, self-gravity, sink particles, H_2 chemistry, dust-gas mixtures, physical viscosity, external forces including numerous galactic potentials as well as implementations of Lense-Thirring precession, Poynting-Robertson drag and stochastic turbulent driving. Phantom is hereby made publicly available.
In this paper, we present a new formulation of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), which, unlike the standard SPH (SSPH), is well-behaved at the contact discontinuity. The SSPH scheme cannot handle discontinuities in density (e.g. the contact discontinuity and the free surface), because it requires that the density of fluid is positive and continuous everywhere. Thus there is inconsistency in the formulation of the SSPH scheme at discontinuities of the fluid density. To solve this problem, we introduce a new quantity associated with particles and density of that quantity. This density evolves through the usual continuity equation with an additional artificial diffusion term, in order to guarantee the continuity of density. We use this density or pseudo density, instead of the mass density, to formulate our SPH scheme. We call our new method as SPH with smoothed pseudo-density (SPSPH). We show that our new scheme is physically consistent and can handle discontinuities quite well.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
