Ross Parkin

• Position:

  Post-doc

• The title of your research proposal:

  Accretion disks, jets, and winds.

• A brief description of your research aims:

  For accretion to occur through a disk, the orbiting material must lose angular momentum. In recent years it has become apparent that magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) processes are important for transporting angular momentum outwards, and allowing material to flow radially inwards. I will explore this interesting phenomenon via simulations of magnetised Keplerian accretion disks. For this purpose I will use the MHD code PLUTO, which will be extended to include radiation transfer, as well as sub-grid viscosity and resistivity. Coala provides an ideal platform for code development and testing. Initial simulations will be performed in 2D, with perhaps a few low resolution 3D runs. Ultimately, large-scale 3D radiation-MHD simulations will require the NCI National Facility.

• A brief description of the nature of the computations to be performed (resources required, interactive/batch job, i/o requirements, single processor/parallel jobs, scalability):

  I anticipate that the 2D simulations will require roughly 8-32 cores (1-4 nodes), and 3D simulations may require of the order of 32 cores (4 nodes). All simulations will run under MPI. Memory requirements should not be too excessive. Coala may be very handy for visualisation of simulation data, particularly 3D datacubes.

• Any additional information:

  In future, and if time permits, I may also use Coala to perform simulations of binary star systems - namely, the turbulent wind-wind collision region. These simulations would likely use the PLUTO code, making use of its adaptive-mesh refinement capabilities.