The 2013 Release of Cloudy

TL;DR

The 2013 release of Cloudy enhances plasma simulation capabilities, focusing on dusty molecular environments, improved solvers, and broad applicability to various astrophysical conditions, demonstrated through example simulations.

Contribution

This paper details new features and improvements in Cloudy 2013, including advanced dust, ionization, and chemistry modules, expanding its modeling range and accuracy.

Findings

Enhanced modeling of dusty molecular environments

Improved ionization and chemistry solvers

Demonstrated wide applicability through example simulations

Abstract

This is a summary of the 2013 release of the plasma simulation code Cloudy. Cloudy models the ionization, chemical, and thermal state of material that may be exposed to an external radiation field or other source of heating, and predicts observables such as emission and absorption spectra. It works in terms of elementary processes, so is not limited to any particular temperature or density regime. This paper summarizes advances made since the last major review in 1998. Much of the recent development has emphasized dusty molecular environments, improvements to the ionization / chemistry solvers, and how atomic and molecular data are used. We present two types of simulations to demonstrate the capability of the code. We consider a molecular cloud irradiated by an X-ray source such as an Active Nucleus and show how treating EUV recombination lines and the full SED affects the observed spectrum. A second example illustrates the very wide range of particle and radiation density that can be considered.