Multimedia Gallery - Visualization

Simulating Supersonic Turbulence

In a remarkable example of cross-discipline NSF-supported research, UCSD astrophysicists Alexei Kritsuk and Michael Norman used the ENZO code for cosmology and astrophysics to model highly compressible Mach 6 supersonic turbulence, which plays an important role in star formation and is extremely difficult to simulate with traditional methods. The simulations on SDSC's DataStar supercomputer revealed hierarchical flow structures with self-similar or fractal characteristics that control energy transfer in a turbulent cascade. SDSC and Calit2 experts used special volumetric visualization techniques to highlight important details of the gas density in the complex 3-D data. The color transition from blue to red indicates a progression to higher densities spanning more than five orders of magnitude.
Image: Amit Chourasia, SDSC; Jurgen Schulze, Calit2.
Source: San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego

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