Collisional Astrophysics Models for Computer Scientists

[carltropper]

I would like find references to collisional astrophysics models. I am a computer scientist interested in developing discrete event n body algorithms and would like any help that I can get. I have developed a direct n body algorithm for systems without collisions which seems to work well and would like to find out if it makes sense to try my hand at the world of collisions.

 

[zhermes]

What type of collisions are you hoping to do?
Generally, even in few-body simulations, collisions are dealt with using some (incredibly) simple prescription, e.g. the "sticky star" approximation in which stars simply merge, and conservation of mass, momentum, and energy is enforced. In stellar evolution models, systems which collide are often just removed from the simulation.

Full collisions are generally only done in full hydrodynamics calculations.

You might want to take a look at Gadget (an industry standard).

 

[carltropper]

Thank you very much for your reply. I guess this means that collisional models are not really worthwhile expending much energy on as they are simple extensions of collision type models.