wiki:u/erica/RadFeedback

Version 1 (modified by Erica Kaminski, 9 years ago) ( diff )

The amount of thermal radiation produced in the grid is a function of temperature. Since sinks are a subgrid model they do not have temperature (we are not sure how big the forming star is, how fast it is growing by contraction, etc., so no easy way to assign the sub-grid object a 'temperature'). However, we track the amount of energy that falls onto the sink. We can imagine that this energy that hits the surface of the star (i.e. as it is accreted by sinks), it contributes to the energy that is re-released back into the grid. That is because young stars emit energy through mechanical (e.g. outflows) and radiation processes. Since we are not modeling the stellar evolution on the sub-grid scale we are not releasing energy into the grid from the sink source from thermonuclear reactions in the core of our invisible star. Instead we can just imagine that as the material hits the surface of the star (i.e. passes through the sink particle) it is slowed and compressed, and then produces thermal radiation. To mock this up, we will prescribe some fraction of it will be released back into the grid — either through mechanical processes (like outflows), or by radiation.

Note: See TracWiki for help on using the wiki.