Physics Commons^™

A Photon Dominated Region Code Comparison Study, M. Röllig, Nicholas Paul Abel, T. Bell, F. Bensch, J. Black, Gary J. Ferland, B. Jonkheid, I. Kamp, M. J. Kaufman, J. Le Bourlot, F. Le Petit, R. Meijerink, O. Morata, V. Ossenkopf, E. Roueff, Gargi Shaw, M. Spaans, A. Sternberg, J. Stutzki, W.-F. Thi, E. F. Van Dishoeck, P. A. M. Van Hoof, S. Viti, M. G. Wolfire

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Aims. We present a comparison between independent computer codes, modeling the physics and chemistry of interstellar photon dominated regions (PDRs). Our goal was to understand the mutual differences in the PDR codes and their effects on the physical and chemical structure of the model clouds, and to converge the output of different codes to a common solution.

Methods. A number of benchmark models have been created, covering low and high gas densities n = 10³,10^5.5 cm^-3 and far ultraviolet intensities χ = 10, 10⁵ in units of the Draine field (FUV: 6 < h_ν < 13.6 eV). The benchmark models were computed in two ways: one set assuming constant temperatures, thus testing the consistency of the chemical network and photo-processes, and a second set determining the temperature self consistently by solving the thermal balance, thus testing the modeling of the heating and cooling mechanisms accounting for the detailed energy balance throughout the clouds.

Results. …