<p>This sounds very ambitious! I think your way in to this topic might be to have a look at the works of two authors - <a href="http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/mbate/" rel="nofollow">Matthew Bate</a> and <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/ucsc.edu/krumholz/" rel="nofollow">Mark Krumholz</a>.</p>

<p>The reason I suggest these two names is that they are representative of the two basic approaches to simulating the collapse of molecular clouds (which has little to do with n-body simulations). These approaches are known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoothed-particle_hydrodynamics" rel="nofollow">Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics</a> (SPH) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_mesh_refinement" rel="nofollow">Adaptive Mesh Refinement</a> (AMR).</p>

<p>Crudely put, SPH treats the fluid as discrete particles whose properties are smoothed over the size of a kernel - the resolution is controlled by the number of particles in the simulation and the smoothing length. AMR is a more "traditional" grid-based approach where the size of the grid is varied adaptively with time and space to get the requisite resolution.</p>

<p>A quick google reveals a number of public codes -e.g. for SPH there is <a href="https://wiki.manchester.ac.uk/sphysics/index.php/SPHYSICS_Home_Page" rel="nofollow">SPHYSICS</a> or <a href="http://www.ase.uc.edu/~liugr/SPH.html" rel="nofollow">GRLAB</a>; for AMR there is <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/0067-0049/211/2/19" rel="nofollow">ENZO</a> or <a href="http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~olson/paramesh-doc/Users_manual/amr.html" rel="nofollow">PARAMESH</a>.</p>

<p>One of the main activities in model simulations these days is trying to incorporate "feedback" into star formation. i.e. the winds and radiation from newly born high-mass stars and the outflows from protostars. Such things do not form part of standard codes.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-17T21:07:03.543Z
2015-03-17T21:07:03.543Z
ProfRob
<p>So, I am getting interested in gravitational collapse of large molecular clouds that fragment and collapse into multiple stars. Are there well-known popular academic simulation packages that simulate these, for research purposes? Or are there papers or references I can use to write my own?</p>

<star-formation><n-body-simulations><newtonian-gravity>
Simulation packages or theory to work with gravitational collapse of massive molecular clouds?
XYZT
# Simulation packages or theory to work with gravitational collapse of massive molecular clouds?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-03-17)

So, I am getting interested in gravitational collapse of large molecular clouds that fragment and collapse into multiple stars. Are there well-known popular academic simulation packages that simulate these, for research purposes? Or are there papers or references I can use to write my own?

**Tags:** star-formation, n-body-simulations, newtonian-gravity


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-03-17. Score: 1

This sounds very ambitious! I think your way in to this topic might be to have a look at the works of two authors - [Matthew Bate](http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/mbate/) and [Mark Krumholz](https://sites.google.com/a/ucsc.edu/krumholz/).

The reason I suggest these two names is that they are representative of the two basic approaches to simulating the collapse of molecular clouds (which has little to do with n-body simulations). These approaches are known as [Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoothed-particle_hydrodynamics) (SPH) and [Adaptive Mesh Refinement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_mesh_refinement) (AMR).

Crudely put, SPH treats the fluid as discrete particles whose properties are smoothed over the size of a kernel - the resolution is controlled by the number of particles in the simulation and the smoothing length. AMR is a more "traditional" grid-based approach where the size of the grid is varied adaptively with time and space to get the requisite resolution.

A quick google reveals a number of public codes -e.g. for SPH there is [SPHYSICS](https://wiki.manchester.ac.uk/sphysics/index.php/SPHYSICS_Home_Page) or [GRLAB](http://www.ase.uc.edu/~liugr/SPH.html); for AMR there is [ENZO](http://iopscience.iop.org/0067-0049/211/2/19) or [PARAMESH](http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~olson/paramesh-doc/Users_manual/amr.html).

One of the main activities in model simulations these days is trying to incorporate "feedback" into star formation. i.e. the winds and radiation from newly born high-mass stars and the outflows from protostars. Such things do not form part of standard codes.


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