Resolving Accretion Disk Turbulence

Charles Gammie, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

We we will run a high resolution local stratified model of isothermal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in an astrophysical flow known as an accretion disk, supplemented by a convergence study at lower resolution. The goals are to: unambiguously resolve the correlation length; eliminate uncertainties inherent to unphysical boundary conditions in earlier work; measure the coherence of magnetic cycles arising from incoherent initial conditions. The results will improve understanding of disks around young stars (where planets form), and disks around black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs. We will use the Ramses-GPU compressible MHD code developed by collaborators Kestener and Fromang. The code is thoroughly tested, has been evaluated for speed and scaling properties on Blue Waters, and is ready to run today.