The AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project II: Isolated disk test

Journal Article · Mon Dec 19 23:00:00 EST 2016 · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/202 · OSTI ID:1341880

Kim, Ji-hoon; Agertz, Oscar; Teyssier, Romain; Butler, Michael J. ; Ceverino, Daniel; Choi, Jun-Hwan; Feldmann, Robert ; Keller, Ben W. ; Lupi, Alessandro ; Quinn, Thomas; Revaz, Yves; Wallace, Spencer; Gnedin, Nickolay Y.; Leitner, Samuel N.; Shen, Sijing; Smith, Britton D.; Thompson, Robert; Turk, Matthew J.; Abel, Tom; Arraki, Kenza S. ; Benincasa, Samantha M.; Chakrabarti, Sukanya ; DeGraf, Colin; Dekel, Avishai ; Goldbaum, Nathan J.; Hopkins, Philip F.; Hummels, Cameron B. ; Klypin, Anatoly; Li, Hui; Madau, Piero ; Mandelker, Nir; Mayer, Lucio; Nagamine, Kentaro; Nickerson, Sarah; O’Shea, Brian W. ; Primack, Joel R. ; Roca-Fàbrega, Santi; Semenov, Vadim ; Shimizu, Ikkoh; Simpson, Christine M. ; Todoroki, Keita; Wadsley, James W.; Wise, John H.

Using an isolated Milky Way-mass galaxy simulation, we compare results from 9 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. Lastly, 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.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP) (SC-25)
• Contributing Organization: AGORA Collaboration
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1341880
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-PUB--16-497-A; arXiv:1610.03066; 1491145
• Journal Information: The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 833; ISSN 1538-4357
• Publisher: Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English