Modeling Stars in 3-D...

Volume rendering of the entropy of a differentially rotating and highly magnetized progenitor to a supernova in a full 3-D. Red colors indicate high entropy (hot) material while blue represents low entropy (cold) material. Strongly magnetized material is continuously launched from the surface of the proto-neutron star in the center but gets severely distorted such that, instead of a clean jet observed in the ultra-strong magnetic field case, two giant polar lobes are formed. The box size for the visualization is 2000km cubed.

Credit: Philipp Moesta, TAPIR, California Institute of Technology

[The following is Part eight in a series of stories that highlight recent discoveries enabled by the Stampede supercomputer. In parts one, two, three, four, five, six and seven, learn how the system is helping to advance research throughout science and engineering.]

Using the National Science Foundation-supported Stampede supercomputer, Philipp Moesta and Christian D. Ott from the California Institute of Technology succeeded in performing the first 3-D simulations of a collapsing star that takes into account the influence of general relativity and magnetohydrodynamics--the interplay of electrically conducting fluids like plasmas and powerful magnetic fields. The death of these collapsing stars leads to energetic, jet-driven supernova explosions.

Their findings show that the simulations behave very differently in full, unconstrained 3-D compared to the same model simulated with the assumption that stars are sperically symmetrical.

National Science Foundation: Everything is Better in 3-D