Basic Monte Carlo code for simulating a radioactively-powered astrophysical transient such as a supernova or kilonova. The only radiative processes considered are electron scattering and bound-bound interactions. Written for the McGill course PHYS642 - Radiative Processes in Astrophysics. The methods used are based primarily on the work of:
- Bulla 2019, MNRAS 489, 5037-5045
- Bulla et al. 2015, MNRAS 450, 967–981
- Kasen et al. 2006, ApJ 651, 366-380
- Mazzali & Lucy 1993, A&A 279, 447-456
- Tanaka et al. 2019, arXiv:1906.08914
For more details, see the accompanying report in the file PHYS642_Project2.pdf
main script: rad_transient.py
This script loads in a line list containing an assortment of r-process elements and runs a Monte Carlo to propagate packets of photons through an ejecta typical of a blue, lanthanide-poor kilonova. This line list is already included in NIST_and_Kurucz_rproc.csv. Lines are acquired from a combination of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Atomic Spectra Database (ASD) and the Kurucz & Bell line list.
Other important scripts:
collect_results.py and collect_MC_info.py can be run from the command line, where the argument supplied should be a directory containing files output by rad_transient.py, e.g.
>>> python3 collect_results.py ~/my_data_directory/
If no argument is supplied, the script will look for files in a directory ./previous_runs. This directory is included in a zip file on this github, and includes previous runs which amount to around 30,000 photon packets.
Running the first of these scripts (collect_results.py) will produce a light curve from the runs (Figure 5 of the accompanying report) and running the second (collect_MC_info.py) will plot a series of diagnostics on e.g. computation times for the Monte Carlo itself (Figures 6-8).