MODEST: Projects

Current Projects

• MICA, the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics, is a virtual astronomy institute featuring many MODEST-related activities. Aimed at harnessing the capabilities of virtual worlds and 3D collaborative environments (such as Second Life, Qwaq, Sun Wonderland), it fosters interaction among astrophysicists with interest in large-scale simulations, including dense stellar systems.

• MUSE, a MUltiscale MUltiphysics Scientific Environment for simulating dense stellar systems, hosted by the University of Amsterdam but open to the entire MODEST community. The main objective of the project is the development of a modular software environment for modeling dense stellar systems, allowing packages written in different languages to interoperate within an integrated software framework. (See also the MODEST-7b and MODEST-7c workshops.)

• The Art of Computational Science, by Piet Hut (IAS) and Jun Makino (Tokyo University), is a multi-volume book series aimed at providing a detailed introduction to simulating dense stellar systems, starting from a beginning undergraduate level.

• Visit our binary evolution page. Run and compare the results of the leading binary evolution packages.

• Download EZ, a robust standalone stellar evolution package, written by Bll Paxton (KITP). The latest version is available on Bill's web site.

• Fewbody is a numerical toolkit for simulating small-N gravitational > dynamics, written by John Fregeau (Northwestern University). It is particularly suited for performing binary scattering experiments, and can be freely downloaded from John's web site.

• MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics), written by Bll Paxton (KITP).

• The McScatter program, written by Douglas McHeggie (University of Edinburgh) and Simon McPortegies Zwart (University of Amsterdam). "Punctuated" binary evolution in a background stellar field.

• Starcluster, written by Ernest Mamikonyan and Steve McMillan (Drexel University), is a package of analysis and visualization tools for N-body systems, linked to the Starlab libraries. It also has several interactive demonstrations.

• Here's a toy model implementation by Piet Hut (IAS) and Jun Makino (Tokyo University) of an interface between stellar dynamics and stellar evolution.

• Triptych, by Jamie Lombardi (Allegheny College): Simulates the collision of two stars, including the pre-collision orbits and the evolution of the collision product. Also has a web interface.

• Tripletych, by Jamie Lombardi (Allegheny College) and Steve McMillan (Drexel University): Simulates the interaction of three stars, including the orbits, possible merger(s), and the evolution of the merger product. Also has a web interface. Contact Jamie or Steve if you are interested in collaborating.

• Window to the Stars, by Rob Izzard and Evert Glebbeek (Utrecht). A graphical user interface to the popular TWIN single/binary stellar evolution code, for novices, students and professional astrophysicists.

New Ideas

• Are you looking for an interesting PhD or postdoctoral project?
• Do you have simulation data or observations that you'd like to share with your colleagues as material for a collaboration?
• Do you have a code which you think might be of interest to other members of the MODEST community?
• Do you have a suggestion of how an existing code or dataset might be applied in a novel way?
• Are you planning an observational or computational proposal and are looking for co-PIs or collaborators?