STARLAB
SUMMARY
Starlab is a software package for simulating the evolution of
dense stellar systems and analyzing the resultant data. It is a
collection of loosely coupled programs (``tools'') linked at the level
of the UNIX operating system. The tools share a common data structure
and can be combined in arbitrarily complex ways to study the dynamics
of star clusters and galactic nuclei.
HISTORY
To some extent, Starlab is modeled on NEMO, a stellar dynamics
software environment developed during the 1980s at the Institute for
Advanced Study, in large part by Josh Barnes, with input from Peter
Teuben and Piet Hut. Starlab differs from NEMO mainly in its use of
UNIX pipes, rather than temporary files, its use of tree structures
rather than arrays to represent N-body systems, and its guarantee of
data conservation in piping. The first Starlab version was written by
Piet Hut at Tokyo University in 1989, in the C language. in 1992,
Piet Hut, Jun Makino and Steve McMillan adapted the package to C++,
and developed its the central engine, Kira, for integrating stellar
orbits with individual time steps. Subsequently, Simon Portegies
Zwart contributed his SeBa package for stellar evolution, which is
directly linked with Kira.
PEOPLE
Piet Hut,
Jun Makino,
Steve McMillan,
Simon Portegies Zwart.
EXTERNAL LINKS
- Our STARLAB website
- STARLAB animations and demos (disabled, for security reasons --
sorry!)
- Binary
evolution
- Here's a description of the
"roche" program used to create the binary evolution graphics.
- 3-body
scattering
(dimensionless units)
- 3-body
scattering
(physical units)
- Simple N-body
systems
- Animations gallery
- Download
STARLAB
In case you came here with another Starlab in mind, you can
choose from the following namesakes:
Page last modified:
.
Please direct comments, criticisms, corrections
and contributions to Steve McMillan:
steve (at) physics.drexel.edu.