Glossary
Glossary
Section titled “Glossary”Key terms used throughout this guide. We keep definitions consistent across all code pages so you can switch between them without confusion.
Conventions
Section titled “Conventions”- The English term is the primary reference for all definitions.
- Terms like AMR, SPH, and Hydrodynamics carry the same meaning whether you are reading about Arepo or Gadget.
- Hydrodynamics: The numerical treatment of fluid motion — how gas flows, collides, and forms shocks in a simulation.
- N-body: Computing the gravitational interaction among many discrete particles, such as dark matter halos or stellar populations.
- AMR (Adaptive Mesh Refinement): A grid technique that automatically adds finer cells only where needed (e.g., near shocks or dense regions), saving compute resources elsewhere.
- SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics): A particle-based method for simulating fluids. Instead of a fixed grid, moving particles carry fluid properties and interact through smoothing kernels.
- Resolution: The smallest spatial or mass scale a simulation can resolve. Higher resolution yields more detail but at significantly greater computational cost.
- Initial Conditions (IC): The starting state of the simulation — positions, velocities, densities, etc. Incorrect ICs will invalidate results regardless of code quality.