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Memorie della Societą Astronomica Italiana 

Supplementi - Vol. 1 

 

COMPUTATIONAL ASTROPHYSICS:
METHODS AND TOOLS

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Osservatorio Astronomico e Dip. di Astronomia dell'Universitį di Bologna e CINECA
Bologna e Casalecchio di Reno (Bo), Italy, July 4-5, 2002
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EDITED BY
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Roberto Capuzzo Dolcetta
Universitą di Roma La Sapienza
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SPONSORING INSTITUTIONS

CINECA
INAF
Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna
Universitą degli Studi di Bologna
Universitą degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza $ $

SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

R. Capuzzo Dolcetta (Chair - Universitą di Roma La Sapienza)
U. Becciani (INAF, Oss. Astrofis. di Catania)
A. Ferrari (Co-chair - INAF Consiglio Direttivo e Universitą di Torino)
C. Gheller (CINECA)
D. Molteni (Universitį di Palermo)
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LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

C. Gheller (CINECA)
P. Londrillo (INAF, Oss. Astron. di Bologna)
P. Miocchi (Universitą di Roma La Sapienza)

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\resizebox{15cm}{!}{\includegraphics{plotblue.ps}}
Figure 1: An example of astrophysical supercomputing: the N-body simulation of the tidal deformation of a $3\times 10^5$ M$_\odot $ globular cluster moving in a circular orbit of radius 500 pc around the centre of a triaxial galaxy. The inner box is a zoom of one of the cluster configurations; in blue colour the stars tidally stripped. (courtesy of Capuzzo Dolcetta, Di Matteo and Miocchi; computations performed with the ORIGIN system at CINECA in the framework of the INAF-CINECA agreement).

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\resizebox{14.5cm}{!}{\includegraphics{heliumdetonation.eps}}
Figure 2: Another example of results of astrophysical supercomputing, obtained by mean of the FLASH code:the helium detonation on the surface of a neutron star after 150 microseconds from the burst. The vertical axis extends through the accreted envelope, to a height of 1.5 km. The horizontal axis is a 2 km portion along the surface of the neutron star. The density plot spans 13 orders of magnitude, from the dense material at the base of the envelope ($10^8$ g/cm$^3$, dark red colour) to the fluff, with a density of $10^{-5}$ g/cm$^3$ (white) (reproduced upon permission of AAS, from Zingale et al., 2001, ApJS, 133, 195).

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In the cover: Commemorative stamp issued in 1991 to the memory of Charles Babbage (1791-1871), as part of the Scientific Achievement series. Babbage is the english mathematician who projected and realized (in the year 1832) the "difference engine", a mchine to compile mathematical tables which was, for any respect, the first example of numerical computer.

In 1856 he conceived the idea of a better machine that could perform not just one mathematical task but any kind of calculation. This was the Analytical Engine (1856), which was intended as a general symbol manipulator, and had some of the characteristics of today's computers. Unfortunately, this machine was never fully realized. Even if little remains of Babbage's prototype computing machines because critical tolerances required by his machines exceeded the level of technology available at the time, Charles Babbage is often referred to as "father of computing."