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Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980's, Volume 2 Reports of the Panels (1983) / Chapter Skim
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IV. Theoretical Computing
Pages 309-314

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From page 309...
... Many important insights and breakthroughs in modern astronomy have been obtained through large-scale computation. Astronomical phenomena typically combine complex interplays of several physical processes with strongly nonlinear effects.
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From page 310...
... Computer experiments played a key role in connecting our understanding of nuclear physics in stellar cores to the observational data, which necessarily refer to only a thin layer at the stellar surface. Computer simulations have been our only means of testing theories of phenomena in stellar interiors, such as the events leading to a supernova explosion.
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From page 311...
... In the 1960's, many N-body calculations were carried out with small numbers of stars interacting through gravitational forces. These calculations yielded excellent models of star clusters, but it was only at the end of the decade, with the development of the particlefollowing numerical methods, that galactic systems could be simulated with models capable of producing the complicated structures characteristic of real disk galaxies.
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From page 312...
... Nevertheless, hydrodynamic computations performed on reasonably fine grids are a rarity even today. Computations that involve the much more complicated and timeconsuming algorithms for multifluid or implicit hydrodynamics or that also involve radiative transfer are even rarer.
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From page 313...
... In addition, some of the problems that are now studied with the biggest machines are amenable to solution with minicomputer-array processor systems. However, there will remain problems -- black-hole dynamics, star formation, radio sources and jets, supernovae, galactic chemical evolution, magnetic fields and plasmas, and solar phenomena, for example -- that are at the cutting edge of theoretical research and merit attention beyond the fraction of astronomical computing they
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From page 314...
... Larger and faster machines expected in the coming decade may allow improved treatment of these problems and, very probably, attacks on additional problems that cannot be fit into machines available today. The Panel makes the following recommendations concerning theoretical astronomical computations in the 1980's: 1.
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Key Terms

  • radiative transfer
  • theoretical computations
  • university computer
  • astronomical computations
  • computational techniques

  • machines available
  • star formation
  • computer centers
  • computer simulations
  • fastest machines

  • theoretical computing
  • disk galaxies
  • physical processes
  • computational capability
  • vector machine

  • computer time
  • astronomical phenomena
  • magnetic fields
  • emission spectra
  • array processor

  • computer capability
  • theoretical astronomical
  • space telescope
  • theoretical calculations
  • computations performed

  • hopeless entanglement
  • supernova explosion
  • structures characteristic
  • simple arguments
  • livermore laboratory


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