Fast and versatile diagnostic radiative transfer of 3-D models of the ISM

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Cornelis Petrus Dullemond
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2011 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 203090784

The key link between theoretical/numerical models of the interstellar medium (ISM) and observations is radiative transfer. The radiation we observe with Earth-bound and space-based telescopes is usually difficult to interpret without it. And numerical models of the ISM cannot be properly compared to observations without radiative transfer. In recent years fully 3-D numerical (radiation-)(chemo-)(magneto-)hydrodynamic (RCMHD) models of the ISM have become mainstream. What is needed now is a versatile, powerful, yet publicly available radiative transfer package that can be used to analyze fully 3-D Adaptive Mesh Refinement RCMHD models of the ISM. I have built a beta-version of such a code: RADMC-3D. It can perform dust continuum and molecular/atomic line transfer, has full 3-D AMR capabilities, is easy to use and yet is very versatile. It has an extensive manual and I have made it publicly available from the start. What is needed now is the final developing stage: (1) Much more extensive testing, (2) implementation of some more physics such as quantum-heated grains and full non-LTE line transfer and (3) a mode for handling domain-decomposed very large models on distributed memory machines.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1573: Physics of the Interstellar Medium