The energy injected into galaxies from dying stars through supernovae plays an important role in how they evolve in a process known as feedback. However, cosmic rays generated by supernovae may be equally important in constructing a complete picture of galaxy evolution. The authors of today’s astrobite investigate this by producing hydrodynamics simulations including supernovae, cosmic rays, and magnetic fields.
The evolution of a galaxy is strongly dependent upon the environment the galaxy lives in. Galaxies moving through galaxy groups and galaxy clusters can get stripped of their gas that would otherwise be used to form stars. Today’s astrobite discusses simulations of the stripping and removal of the hot, gaseous coronae that surround galaxies.
You can’t model RW Aurigae as a single star with a disk of material around it, because there is a second star. And you can’t model it as a regular old binary system either, because there are interactions between the stars and the asymmetric disk. The authors of today’s paper create a comprehensive hydrodynamic model that considers many different observations of RW Aurigae.
The massive binary star system Eta Carinae has been examined like never before in a recent study. Read on to hear the new discoveries from this approach, and the potential it opens for astrophysical research.
Feedback processes, like supernova and AGN, are essential for accurately simulation galaxy formation and evolution. Today’s astrobite examines the role of radiation feedback in galaxy formation in new “radiation hydrodynamics” simulations of galaxies.
High resolution computational simulations are a valuable means by which Astronomers test our understanding of the Universe, and make predictions. The world of computational astrophysics broke new ground recently with the highest resolution cosmological simulation to date, Illustris, making for some spectacular science and some spectacular images.