TY - JOUR
T1 - Million-body star cluster simulations
T2 - Comparisons between Monte Carlo and direct N-body
AU - Rodriguez, Carl L.
AU - Morscher, Meagan
AU - Wang, Long
AU - Chatterjee, Sourav
AU - Rasio, Frederic A.
AU - Spurzem, Rainer
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The Authors.
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - We present the first detailed comparison between million-body globular cluster simulations computed with a Hénon-type Monte Carlo code, CMC, and a direct N-body code, NBODY6++GPU. Both simulations start from an identical cluster model with 106 particles, and include all of the relevant physics needed to treat the system in a highly realistic way. With the two codes 'frozen' (no fine-tuning of any free parameters or internal algorithms of the codes) we find good agreement in the overall evolution of the twomodels. Furthermore, we find that in bothmodels, large numbers of stellar-mass black holes (> 1000) are retained for 12 Gyr. Thus, the very accurate direct N-body approach confirms recent predictions that black holes can be retained in present-day, old globular clusters.We find only minor disagreements between the two models and attribute these to the small-N dynamics driving the evolution of the cluster core for which the Monte Carlo assumptions are less ideal. Based on the overwhelming general agreement between the two models computed using these vastly different techniques, we conclude that our Monte Carlo approach, which is more approximate, but dramatically faster compared to the direct N-body, is capable of producing an accurate description of the long-term evolution of massive globular clusters even when the clusters contain large populations of stellar-mass black holes.
AB - We present the first detailed comparison between million-body globular cluster simulations computed with a Hénon-type Monte Carlo code, CMC, and a direct N-body code, NBODY6++GPU. Both simulations start from an identical cluster model with 106 particles, and include all of the relevant physics needed to treat the system in a highly realistic way. With the two codes 'frozen' (no fine-tuning of any free parameters or internal algorithms of the codes) we find good agreement in the overall evolution of the twomodels. Furthermore, we find that in bothmodels, large numbers of stellar-mass black holes (> 1000) are retained for 12 Gyr. Thus, the very accurate direct N-body approach confirms recent predictions that black holes can be retained in present-day, old globular clusters.We find only minor disagreements between the two models and attribute these to the small-N dynamics driving the evolution of the cluster core for which the Monte Carlo assumptions are less ideal. Based on the overwhelming general agreement between the two models computed using these vastly different techniques, we conclude that our Monte Carlo approach, which is more approximate, but dramatically faster compared to the direct N-body, is capable of producing an accurate description of the long-term evolution of massive globular clusters even when the clusters contain large populations of stellar-mass black holes.
KW - Binaries: close
KW - Globular clusters: general
KW - Gravitationalwaves
KW - Methods: numerical
KW - Stars: kinematics and dynamics
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stw2121
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stw2121
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85010074368
VL - 463
SP - 2109
EP - 2118
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
SN - 0035-8711
IS - 2
ER -