Introducing Enzo, an AMR Cosmology Application

TL;DR

Enzo is a new 3D MPI-parallel adaptive mesh refinement code designed for cosmological and astrophysical simulations, integrating dark matter dynamics, hydrodynamics, and various physics modules.

Contribution

The paper introduces Enzo, a versatile, publicly available AMR cosmology code that combines advanced numerical methods and physics modules for detailed astrophysical simulations.

Findings

Demonstrates Enzo's capability to simulate cosmological structure formation.

Shows the effectiveness of adaptive mesh refinement in astrophysical simulations.

Provides example results illustrating the code's physics and performance.

Abstract

In this paper we introduce Enzo, a 3D MPI-parallel Eulerian block-structured adaptive mesh refinement cosmology code. Enzo is designed to simulate cosmological structure formation, but can also be used to simulate a wide range of astrophysical situations. Enzo solves dark matter N-body dynamics using the particle-mesh technique. The Poisson equation is solved using a combination of fast fourier transform (on a periodic root grid) and multigrid techniques (on non-periodic subgrids). Euler's equations of hydrodynamics are solved using a modified version of the piecewise parabolic method. Several additional physics packages are implemented in the code, including several varieties of radiative cooling, a metagalactic ultraviolet background, and prescriptions for star formation and feedback. We also show results illustrating properties of the adaptive mesh portion of the code. Enzo is publicly available and can be downloaded at http://cosmos.ucsd.edu/enzo/ .