| This group application of the Leiden theory group around Prof. V. Icke aims at hydrodynamical simulations of various astrophysical objects, ranging from the birth of planets over the death of stars to the evolution of the universe. Our recent improvements allow us to include radiative transfer in these 2D/3D simulations in various approximations (Monte Carlo method, hybrid characteristics method, SimpleX method), which is the key to develop more realistic models of astrophysical gases that can be compared to observations. It also opens up the possibility to study chemical conversions like photoionisation and dust formation which are strongly coupled to the radiative transfer. The concrete objects we want to model are (i) dynamics of dust-driven stellar winds, (ii) young planets interacting with circumstellar disks (iii) ionisation of the ISM / reionisation of the universe and (iv) detection of gravitational waves with pulsar-timing. The combination of 2D/3D hydrodynamical models with radiative transfer and chemical processes requires the use of high-performance parallel computers. |
