Resolution criteria to avoid artificial clumping in Lagrangian hydrodynamic simulations with a multi-phase interstellar medium

Autor(en)

Sylvia Plöckinger, Folkert S.~J. Nobels, Matthieu Schaller, Joop Schaye

Abstrakt

Large-scale cosmological galaxy formation simulations typically prevent gas in the interstellar medium (ISM) from cooling below ≈ 10

⁴ K. This has been motivated by the inability to resolve the Jeans mass in molecular gas (<< 10

⁵ M⨀) which would result in undesired artificial clumping. We show that the classical Jeans criteria derived for Newtonian gravity are not applicable in the simulated ISM if the spacing of resolution elements representing the dense ISM is below the gravitational force softening length and gravity is therefore softened and not Newtonian. We re-derive the Jeans criteria for softened gravity in Lagrangian codes and use them to analyse gravitational instabilities at and below the hydrodynamical resolution limit for simulations with adaptive and constant gravitational softening lengths. In addition, we define criteria for which a numerical runaway collapse of dense gas clumps can occur caused by oversmoothing of the hydrodynamical properties relative to the gravitational force resolution. This effect is illustrated using simulations of isolated disc galaxies with the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code SWIFT. We also demonstrate how to avoid the formation of artificial clumps in gas and stars by adjusting the gravitational and hydrodynamical force resolutions.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Astrophysik

Externe Organisation(en)

Leiden University

Journal

MNRAS

Band

528

Seiten

2930-2951

Anzahl der Seiten

22

ISSN

0035-8711

Publikationsdatum

02-2024

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103004 Astrophysik, 102009 Computersimulation

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/d5e108f7-ce6a-4ca1-bd74-c5f3c775628f