Featured Researches

Computational Physics

1+1D implicit disk computations

We present an implicit numerical method to solve the time-dependent equations of radiation hydrodynamics (RHD) in axial symmetry assuming hydrostatic equilibrium perpendicular to the equatorial plane (1+1D) of a gaseous disk. The equations are formulated in conservative form on an adaptive grid and the corresponding fluxes are calculated by a spacial second order advection scheme. Self-gravity of the disk is included by solving the Possion equation. We test the resulting numerical method through comparison with a simplified analytical solution as well as through the long term viscous evolution of protoplanetary disk when due to viscosity matter is transported towards the central host star and the disk depletes. The importance of the inner boundary conditions on the structural behaviour of disks is demonstrated with several examples.

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Computational Physics

2D Fourier finite element formulation for magnetostatics in curvilinear coordinates with a symmetry direction

We present a numerical method for the solution of linear magnetostatic problems in domains with a symmetry direction, including axial and translational symmetry. The approach uses a Fourier series decomposition of the vector potential formulation along the symmetry direction and covers both, zeroth (non-oscillatory) and non-zero (oscillatory) harmonics. For the latter it is possible to eliminate one component of the vector potential resulting in a fully transverse vector potential orthogonal to the transverse magnetic field. In addition to the Poisson-like equation for the longitudinal component of the non-oscillatory problem, a general curl-curl Helmholtz equation results for the transverse problem covering both, non-oscillatory and oscillatory case. The derivation is performed in the covariant formalism for curvilinear coordinates with a tensorial permeability and symmetry restrictions on metric and permeability tensor. The resulting variational forms are treated by the usual nodal finite element method for the longitudinal problem and by a two-dimensional edge element method for the transverse problem. The numerical solution can be computed independently for each harmonic which is favourable with regard to memory usage and parallelisation.

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Computational Physics

A Bin and Hash Method for Analyzing Reference Data and Descriptors in Machine Learning Potentials

In recent years the development of machine learning (ML) potentials (MLP) has become a very active field of research. Numerous approaches have been proposed, which allow to perform extended simulations of large systems at a small fraction of the computational costs of electronic structure calculations. The key to the success of modern ML potentials is the close-to first principles quality description of the atomic interactions. This accuracy is reached by using very flexible functional forms in combination with high-level reference data from electronic structure calculations. These data sets can include up to hundreds of thousands of structures covering millions of atomic environments to ensure that all relevant features of the potential energy surface are well represented. The handling of such large data sets is nowadays becoming one of the main challenges in the construction of ML potentials. In this paper we present a method, the bin-and-hash (BAH) algorithm, to overcome this problem by enabling the efficient identification and comparison of large numbers of multidimensional vectors. Such vectors emerge in multiple contexts in the construction of ML potentials. Examples are the comparison of local atomic environments to identify and avoid unnecessary redundant information in the reference data sets that is costly in terms of both the electronic structure calculations as well as the training process, the assessment of the quality of the descriptors used as structural fingerprints in many types of ML potentials, and the detection of possibly unreliable data points. The BAH algorithm is illustrated for the example of high-dimensional neural network potentials using atom-centered symmetry functions for the geometrical description of the atomic environments, but the method is general and can be combined with any current type of ML potential.

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Computational Physics

A Chebyshev-based High-order-accurate Integral Equation Solver for Maxwell's Equations

This paper introduces a new method for discretizing and solving integral equation formulations of Maxwell's equations which achieves spectral accuracy for smooth surfaces. The approach is based on a hybrid Nyström-collocation method using Chebyshev polynomials to expand the unknown current densities over curvilinear quadrilateral surface patches. As an example, the proposed strategy is applied the to Magnetic Field Integral Equation (MFIE) and the N-Müller formulation for scattering from metallic and dielectric objects, respectively. The convergence is studied for several different geometries, including spheres, cubes, and complex NURBS geometries imported from CAD software, and the results are compared against a commercial Method-of-Moments solver using RWG basis functions.

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Computational Physics

A Decoupled Scheme to Solve the Mass and Momentum Conservation Equations of the Improved Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer Framework in Matrix Acidization

Matrix acidization simulation is a challenging task in the study of flows in porous media, due to the changing porosity in the procedure. The improved DBF framework is one model to do this simulation, and its numerical scheme discretises the mass and momentum conservation equations together to form a pressure-velocity linear system. However, this linear system can only be solved by direct solvers to solve for pressure and velocity simultaneously, since zeros appear in the diagonal of the coefficient matrix. Considering the large-scale attribute of matrix acidization simulation, the solving time of direct solvers is not intolerant. Thus, a decoupled scheme is proposed in this work to decouple the coupled pressure-velocity linear system into two independent linear systems: one is to solve for pressure, and the other one is to solve for velocity. Both of the new linear systems can be solved by parallel and iterative solvers, which guarantees the large-scale simulation can be finished in a reasonable time period. A numerical experiment is carried out to demonstrate the correctness of the decoupled scheme and its higher computing efficiency.

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Computational Physics

A Diffuse Interface Model of Reactive-fluids and Solid-dynamics

This article presents a multi-physics methodology for the numerical simulation of physical systems that involve the non-linear interaction of multi-phase reactive fluids and elastoplastic solids, inducing high strain-rates and high deformations. Each state of matter is governed by a single system of non-linear, inhomogeneous partial differential equations, which are solved simultaneously on the same computational grid, and do not require special treatment of immersed boundaries. To this end, the governing equations for solid and reactive multiphase fluid mechanics are written in the same mathematical form and are discretised on a regular Cartesian mesh. All phase and material boundaries are treated as diffuse interfaces. An interface-steepening technique is employed at material boundaries to keep interfaces sharp whilst maintaining the conservation properties of the system. These algorithms are implemented in a highly-parallelised hierarchical adaptive mesh refinement platform, and are verified and validated using numerical and experimental benchmarks. Results indicate very good agreement with experiment and an improvement of numerical performance compared to certain existing Eulerian methods, without loss of conservation.

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Computational Physics

A Discrete Ion Stochastic Continuum Overdamped Solvent Algorithm for Modeling Electrolytes

In this paper we develop a methodology for the mesoscale simulation of strong electrolytes. The methodology is an extension of the Fluctuating Immersed Boundary (FIB) approach that treats a solute as discrete Lagrangian particles that interact with Eulerian hydrodynamic and electrostatic fields. In both cases the Immersed Boundary (IB) method of Peskin is used for particle-field coupling. Hydrodynamic interactions are taken to be overdamped, with thermal noise incorporated using the fluctuating Stokes equation, including a "dry diffusion" Brownian motion to account for scales not resolved by the coarse-grained model of the solvent. Long range electrostatic interactions are computed by solving the Poisson equation, with short range corrections included using a novel immersed-boundary variant of the classical Particle-Particle Particle-Mesh (P3M) technique. Also included is a short range repulsive force based on the Weeks-Chandler-Andersen (WCA) potential. The new methodology is validated by comparison to Debye-H{ü}ckel theory for ion-ion pair correlation functions, and Debye-H{ü}ckel-Onsager theory for conductivity, including the Wein effect for strong electric fields. In each case good agreement is observed, provided that hydrodynamic interactions at the typical ion-ion separation are resolved by the fluid grid.

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Computational Physics

A High Order Flux Reconstruction Interface Tracking Method Using Preconditioned Phase Field

This paper presents a simple and highly accurate method for capturing sharp interfaces moving in divergence-free velocity fields using the high-order Flux Reconstruction approach on unstructured grids. A well-known limitation of high-order methods is their susceptibility to the Gibbs phenomenon; the appearance of spurious oscillations in the vicinity of discontinuities and steep gradients makes it difficult to accurately resolve shocks or sharp interfaces. In order to address this issue in the context of sharp interface capturing, a novel, preconditioned and localized phase field method is developed in this work. The numerical accuracy of interface normal vectors is improved by utilizing a preconditioning procedure based on the level set method with localized artificial viscosity stabilization. The developed method was implemented in the framework of the multi-platform Flux Reconstruction open-source code PyFR. Numerical tests in 2D and 3D conducted on different mesh types showed that the preconditioning procedure significantly improves accuracy. The results demonstrate the conservativeness of the proposed method and its ability to capture highly distorted interfaces with superior accuracy when compared to conventional and high-order VOF and level set methods. The high accuracy and locality of the proposed method offer a promising route to carrying out massively-parallel, high accuracy simulations of multi-phase, incompressible phenomena.

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Computational Physics

A Hybrid Fast Multipole Method for Cosmological N-body Simulations

We investigate a hybrid numerical algorithm aimed at the large-scale cosmological N-body simulation for the on-going and the future high precious sky surveys. It makes use of a truncated Fast Multiple Method (FMM) for short-range gravity, incorporating with a Particle Mesh (PM) method for long-range potential, which is applied to deal with extremely large particle number. In this work, we present a specific strategy to modify a conventional FMM by a Gaussian shaped factor and provide quantitative expressions for the interaction kernels between multipole expansions. Moreover, a proper multipole acceptance criteria for the hybrid method is introduced to solve potential precision loss induced by the truncation. Such procedures reduce the mount of computation than an original FMM and decouple the global communication. A simplified version of code is introduced to verify the hybrid algorithm, accuracy and parallel implementation.

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Computational Physics

A Langevin dynamics approach for multi-layer mass transfer problems

We use Langevin dynamics simulations to study the mass diffusion problem across two adjacent porous layers of different transport property. At the interface between the layers, we impose the Kedem-Katchalsky (KK) interfacial boundary condition that is well suited in a general situation. A detailed algorithm for the implementation of the KK interfacial condition in the Langevin dynamics framework is presented. As a case study, we consider a two-layer diffusion model of a drug-eluting stent. The simulation results are compared with those obtained from the solution of the corresponding continuum diffusion equation, and an excellent agreement is shown.

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