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THE AGORA HIGH-RESOLUTION GALAXY SIMULATIONS COMPARISON PROJECT. II. ISOLATED DISK TEST

Kim, Ji Hoon ; Agertz, Oscar LU ; Teyssier, Romain ; Butler, Michael J. ; Ceverino, Daniel ; Choi, Jun Hwan ; Feldmann, Robert ; Keller, Ben W. ; Lupi, Alessandro and Quinn, Thomas , et al. (2016) In Astrophysical Journal 833(2).
Abstract

Using an isolated Milky Way-mass galaxy simulation, we compare results from nine state-of-the-art gravito-hydrodynamics codes widely used in the numerical community. We utilize the infrastructure we have built for the AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. This includes the common disk initial conditions, common physics models (e.g., radiative cooling and UV background by the standardized package Grackle) and common analysis toolkit yt, all of which are publicly available. Subgrid physics models such as Jeans pressure floor, star formation, supernova feedback energy, and metal production are carefully constrained across code platforms. With numerical accuracy that resolves the disk scale height, we find that the... (More)

Using an isolated Milky Way-mass galaxy simulation, we compare results from nine state-of-the-art gravito-hydrodynamics codes widely used in the numerical community. We utilize the infrastructure we have built for the AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. This includes the common disk initial conditions, common physics models (e.g., radiative cooling and UV background by the standardized package Grackle) and common analysis toolkit yt, all of which are publicly available. Subgrid physics models such as Jeans pressure floor, star formation, supernova feedback energy, and metal production are carefully constrained across code platforms. With numerical accuracy that resolves the disk scale height, we find that the codes overall agree well with one another in many dimensions including: gas and stellar surface densities, rotation curves, velocity dispersions, density and temperature distribution functions, disk vertical heights, stellar clumps, star formation rates, and Kennicutt-Schmidt relations. Quantities such as velocity dispersions are very robust (agreement within a few tens of percent at all radii) while measures like newly formed stellar clump mass functions show more significant variation (difference by up to a factor of ∼3). Systematic differences exist, for example, between mesh-based and particle-based codes in the low-density region, and between more diffusive and less diffusive schemes in the high-density tail of the density distribution. Yet intrinsic code differences are generally small compared to the variations in numerical implementations of the common subgrid physics such as supernova feedback. Our experiment reassures that, if adequately designed in accordance with our proposed common parameters, results of a modern high-resolution galaxy formation simulation are more sensitive to input physics than to intrinsic differences in numerical schemes.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
galaxies: evolution, galaxies: formation, galaxies: kinematics and dynamics, ISM: structure, methods: numerical, theory
in
Astrophysical Journal
volume
833
issue
2
article number
202
publisher
American Astronomical Society
external identifiers
  • scopus:85007593527
  • wos:000391169600077
ISSN
0004-637X
DOI
10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/202
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
2027817f-e1f0-4314-8af2-13df3c586e17
date added to LUP
2017-01-24 13:03:09
date last changed
2024-04-19 17:44:26
@article{2027817f-e1f0-4314-8af2-13df3c586e17,
  abstract     = {{<p>Using an isolated Milky Way-mass galaxy simulation, we compare results from nine state-of-the-art gravito-hydrodynamics codes widely used in the numerical community. We utilize the infrastructure we have built for the AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. This includes the common disk initial conditions, common physics models (e.g., radiative cooling and UV background by the standardized package Grackle) and common analysis toolkit yt, all of which are publicly available. Subgrid physics models such as Jeans pressure floor, star formation, supernova feedback energy, and metal production are carefully constrained across code platforms. With numerical accuracy that resolves the disk scale height, we find that the codes overall agree well with one another in many dimensions including: gas and stellar surface densities, rotation curves, velocity dispersions, density and temperature distribution functions, disk vertical heights, stellar clumps, star formation rates, and Kennicutt-Schmidt relations. Quantities such as velocity dispersions are very robust (agreement within a few tens of percent at all radii) while measures like newly formed stellar clump mass functions show more significant variation (difference by up to a factor of ∼3). Systematic differences exist, for example, between mesh-based and particle-based codes in the low-density region, and between more diffusive and less diffusive schemes in the high-density tail of the density distribution. Yet intrinsic code differences are generally small compared to the variations in numerical implementations of the common subgrid physics such as supernova feedback. Our experiment reassures that, if adequately designed in accordance with our proposed common parameters, results of a modern high-resolution galaxy formation simulation are more sensitive to input physics than to intrinsic differences in numerical schemes.</p>}},
  author       = {{Kim, Ji Hoon and Agertz, Oscar and Teyssier, Romain and Butler, Michael J. and Ceverino, Daniel and Choi, Jun Hwan and Feldmann, Robert and Keller, Ben W. and Lupi, Alessandro and Quinn, Thomas and Revaz, Yves and Wallace, Spencer and Gnedin, Nickolay Y. and Leitner, Samuel N. and Shen, Sijing and Smith, Britton D. and Thompson, Robert and Turk, Matthew J. and Abel, Tom and Arraki, Kenza S. and Benincasa, Samantha M. and Chakrabarti, Sukanya and Degraf, Colin and Dekel, Avishai and Goldbaum, Nathan J. and Hopkins, Philip F. and Hummels, Cameron B. and Klypin, Anatoly and Li, Hui and Madau, Piero and Mandelker, Nir and Mayer, Lucio and Nagamine, Kentaro and Nickerson, Sarah and O'Shea, Brian W. and Primack, Joel R. and Roca-Fàbrega, Santi and Semenov, Vadim and Shimizu, Ikkoh and Simpson, Christine M. and Todoroki, Keita and Wadsley, James W. and Wise, John H.}},
  issn         = {{0004-637X}},
  keywords     = {{galaxies: evolution; galaxies: formation; galaxies: kinematics and dynamics; ISM: structure; methods: numerical; theory}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{12}},
  number       = {{2}},
  publisher    = {{American Astronomical Society}},
  series       = {{Astrophysical Journal}},
  title        = {{THE AGORA HIGH-RESOLUTION GALAXY SIMULATIONS COMPARISON PROJECT. II. ISOLATED DISK TEST}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/202}},
  doi          = {{10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/202}},
  volume       = {{833}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}