Gas Chemistry, Cooling, and Heating

There are two ways that Enzo can perform radiative cooling. Natively, Enzo provides a number of different methods ranging from simple tabulated, analytical approximations to very sophisticated non-equilibrium primoridal chemistry. These are described below. Alternatively, Enzo supports the external Grackle library for tracking chemistry and performing radiative cooling. See here for a full description and reasons to use Grackle. Both Grackle and the native Enzo methods support metal cooling via Cloudy tables.

All of these methods require the parameter RadiativeCooling be set to 1. Other parameters are required for using the various native methods, including Grackle, which are described below. For all relevant parameters, please also see Cooling Parameters.

MultiSpecies = 0: Sarazin & White

Source: solve_cool.F, cool1d.F

RadiativeCooling = 1

MultiSpecies = 0

This method uses an analytical approximation from Sarazin & White (1987, ApJ, 320, 32) for a fully ionized gas with metallicity of 0.5 solar. This cooling curve is valid over the temperature range from 10,000 K to 109 K. Since this assumes a fully ionized gas, the cooling rate is effectively zero below 10,000 K.

Note: In order use this cooling method, you must copy the file, cool_rates.in, from the input directory into your simulation directory.

MultiSpecies = 1, 2, or 3: Primordial Chemistry and Cooling

Source: multi_cool.F, cool1d_multi.F

This method follows the nonequilibrium evolution of primordial (metal-free) gas. The chemical rate equations are solved using a semi-implicit backward differencing scheme described by Abel et al. (1997, New Astronomy, 181) and Anninos et al. (1997, New Astronomy, 209). Heating and cooling processes include atomic line excitation, recombination, collisional excitation, free-free transitions, Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background and photoionization from a variety of metagalactic UV backgrounds. For MultiSpecies > 1, molecular cooling is also included and UV backgrounds that include photodissociation may also be used. Numerous chemistry and cooling rates have been added or updated. For the exact reference for any given rate, users are encouraged to consult calc_rates.F.

  1. Atomic

    RadiativeCooling = 1

    MultiSpecies = 1

    Only atomic species, H, H+, He, He+, He++, and e- are followed. Since molecular species are not treated, the cooling is effectively zero for temperatures below roughly 10,000 K.

  2. Molecular Hydrogen

    RadiativeCooling = 1

    MultiSpecies = 2

    Along with the six species above, H2, H2+, and H- are also followed. In addition to the rates described in Abel et al. (1997, New Astronomy, 181) and Anninos et al. (1997, New Astronomy, 209), H2 formation via three-body reactions as described by Abel, Bryan, and Norman (2002, Science, 295, 93) is also included. This method is valid in the temperature range of 1 K to 108 K and up to number densities of roughly 109 cm-3. Additionally, three-body heating (4.48eV per molecule formed or dissociated) is added as appropriate.

  3. Deuterium

    RadiativeCooling = 1

    MultiSpecies = 3

    In addition to the nine species solved with MultiSpecies = 2, D, D+, and HD are also followed. The range of validity is the same as for MultiSpecies = 2.

Metal Cooling

Three distinct methods to calculate the cooling from elements heavier than He exist. These are selected by setting the MetalCooling parameter to 1, 2, or 3.

  1. John Wise’s metal cooling.

    RadiativeCooling = 1

    MetalCooling = 1

  2. Cen et al (1995) cooling. This uses output from a Raymond-Smith code to determine cooling rates from T > 104K. No ionizing background is used in computing cooling rates. This method has not been extensively tested in the context of Enzo.

    RadiativeCooling = 1

    MetalCooling = 2

  3. Cloudy cooling.

    Source: cool1d_cloudy.F

    RadiativeCooling = 1

    MetalCooling = 3

    MultiSpeces = 1, 2, or 3

    Cloudy cooling operates in conjunction with the primordial chemistry and cooling from MultiSpecies set to 1, 2, or 3. As described in Smith, Sigurdsson, & Abel (2008), Cloudy cooling interpolates over tables of precomputed cooling data using the Cloudy photoionization software (Ferland et al. 1998, PASP, 110, 761, http://nublado.org). The cooling datasets can be from one to five dimensional. The range of validity will depends on the dataset used.

    1. Temperature
    2. Density and temperature.
    3. Density, metallicity, and temperature.
    4. Density, metallicity, electron fraction, and temperature.
    5. Density, metallicity, electron fraction, redshift of UV background, and temperature.

    See Cloudy Cooling for additional parameters that control the behavior of the Cloudy cooling. For more information on obtaining or creating Cloudy cooling datasets, contact Britton Smith (brittonsmith@gmail.com).

Using Grackle

To use the Grackle library for radiative cooling:

use_grackle = 1

with_radiative_cooling = 1

The MultiSpecies and MetalCooling Enzo parameters are mapped to their respective Grackle parameters, with MultiSpecies behaving the same way as described above.

When using Grackle, MetalCooling can only be 0 or 1 for off and on respectively. If MetalCooling is on, a Cloudy cooling table must be specified using the grackle_data_file parameter.

See The Grackle for more parameters that can be used with Grackle.

UV Meta-galactic Backgrounds

Source: RadiationFieldCalculateRates.C

Enzo natively includes a variety of spatially uniform photoionizing and photodissociating backgrounds, mainly by setting the parameter RadiationFieldType. These radiation backgrounds are redshift dependent and work by setting the photoionization and photoheating coeffiecients for H, He, and He+. See Background Radiation Parameters for the additional parameters that control the UV backgrounds.

If using Grackle, the UV background is instead enabled via the UVbackground parameter, and specified with the grackle_data_file parameter.