Rainer Spurzem

Currently Visiting Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at National Astronomical Observatories of China
for the Silk Road Project
Up to Date Publication List by ADS (Strasbourg Site)
Publication List (refereed papers only, as of Oct. 2006
Lectures on direct N-body simulations Dec. 2006 - video sequences to be continued ...
Astronomisches Rechen-Institut , Zentrum für Astronomie der Univ. Heidelberg ,
Mönchhofstrasse 12-14, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Prof. Dr., Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie , Univ. Heidelberg
Phone: +49-6221-54-1830; Fax: +49-6221-54-1888; Email: spurzem@ari.uni-heidelberg.de
Office Location: Room No. N.E-01, ground floor, main building (Neubau).
Member of Astronomische Gesellschaft , European Astronomical Society , International Astronomical Union
Main Fields of Research (these link-anchors lead directly to short paragraphs below on this page):
Stellar and Galactic Dynamics , Stellar and Planetary Dynamics , Direct N-Body Simulations , Special Purpose Computing

FRONTIER innovative grant and GGAPP = GPU Gems for Astro- and Particle Physics
Build major computing facilities with project partner NVIDIA - Visual Computing Techniques

LISA Germany Project
Cooperation with Gravitational Wave Astrophysics Research Groups
to predict gravitational waves for the LISA Satellites

GRACE = GRAPE + MPRACE
Building Supercomputers, Supermassive Black Hole in Galaxies, Gravitational Waves
Participation in the DFG Priority Program SPP 1177   
Witnesses of Cosmic History: Formation and evolution of black holes, galaxies and their environment
Project "CO-evolution of supermassive black holes and galactic nuclei"
with David Merritt ( Rochester Inst. of Technology, New York, USA )
Participation SFB439 Galaxies in the Young Universe    ( SFB439 Main Page )
Project B11 Dynamics of Stars and Gas in Galaxies (with H.P. Gail , ITA )
DEISA Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications
Project Einstein - From Newton to Einstein in Gravitational N-Body Dynamics
with Simon Portegies Zwart ( Astron. Inst. Anton Pannekoek Univ. v. Amsterdam, NL )
AstroGrid-D German Astronomy Community Grid (GACG)
within the D-Grid Initiative - Coordination of Workgroup V Resource Management for Grid Jobs
Virgo-EGO Scientific Forum Ego1 logo
Dense Star Clusters as Sources of Gravitational Waves (project page)

MODEST - Modelling Dense Stellar Systems Internat. Working Group

Stellar and Galactic Dynamics:

Dynamics of (globular) star clusters, galaxies and galactic nuclei; galaxies in the young universe (Sonderforschungsbereich SFB439 ``Galaxies in the Young Universe'' at the Univ. Heidelberg , Sub-Project A5 on Formation and Evolution of Galactic Nuclei, project leaders R. Spurzem and A. Just ). Study of the effects of rotation, mass segregation, primordial binaries and central massive objects on the evolution of dense stellar systems. Using anisotropic gaseous models , direct solutions of the Fokker-Planck equation and Monte Carlo methods to simulate numerically the effects of stellar evolution, a realistic mass spectrum, galactic tidal fields on the evolution of dense young or globular star clusters. Using particle methods ( SPH = Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics, some SPH-links: St. Andrews , Tübingen ) to study the combined evolution of stellar systems and interstellar matter, e.g. for chemodynamical models of galaxy formation. External collaborations in this field (internal see Members of the Gang ):

  • Mirek Giersz, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Centre, Warsaw , Monte Carlo models of star clusters with binaries
    David Merritt , Andras Szell, RIT - Rochester Inst. of Technology, New York State, USA , Black Holes in Dense Stellar Clusters
  • Hyung Mok Lee and Eunhyeuk Kim, Dept. of Astronomy, Univ. of Seoul, Korea Models of rotating star clusters
  • Koji Takahashi, Holger Baumgardt , University of Tokyo , Models of star clusters
  • Simon Portegies Zwart , Universiteit van Amsterdam , Ortwin Gerhard , Astron. Inst. Univ. Basel , Dense star clusters near the Galactic Centre
  • Peter Berczik, Main Astronomical Observatory Kiev, Ukraine , Galaxy Formation, Multi-Phase Models of The Interstellar Medium
  • Naohito Nakasato , University of Tokyo , Galaxy Formation, SPH
  • Gerhard Hensler , Christian Theis , Inst. f. Astron. Univ. Vienna , Galaxy Formation, Stellar Dynamics, SPH
  • Pavel Kroupa , Michael Fellhauer, Univ. Bonn, Young Star Clusters, N-Body Methods

    Stellar and Planetary Dynamics:

    Formation of Protoplanets in disks of merging and fragmenting planetesimals, runaway and oligarchic growth, interaction with disks, based on direct N-Body simulation models. The influence of stellar encounters on the evolution of orbital parameters of planetary systems in star clusters. Participation planned in DFG Schwerpunkt ("Focused Research Programme" of German Science Foundation) on "Extrasolar Planets" . Collaborations in this field:

  • Doug Lin , Univ. of California
  • Shigeru Ida , Tokyo Institute of Technology
  • Eiichiro Kokubo , National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
    MPIA Heidelberg Jens Rodmann

    Direct N-Body Simulations:

    Direct N-body Simulations of collisional star clusters (globulars, young dense, around galactic central black holes) using NBODY6++ (a download area here ) - a special variant of NBODY6 (a download area here , direct force integration programme originally written by Sverre Aarseth) for massively parallel supercomputers. Supported platforms include ALiCE at the Univ. Wuppertal (see also the web page of Thomas Lippert for more information), or general supercomputers such as Hitachi SR8000 , IBM RS/6000 SP and CRAY T3E (in memoriam Seymour Cray, new link!), visualization of the results with NEMO. External collaborations in this field with:

  • Sverre Aarseth , Inst. of Astronomy Cambridge
  • Jun Makino , University of Tokyo
  • Douglas Heggie , Dept. of Maths. and Stats. Univ of Edinburgh
  • Paolo Miocchi , Roberto Capuzzo-Dolcetta , La Sapienza Universita di Roma
  • We acknowledge supercomputing time at: HLRS Stuttgart , NIC Jülich , SSC Karlsruhe
  • We acknowledge numerous TRACS research visits supported by the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre.
  • Other interesting supercomputer centres: LRZ München , ZIB Berlin , Hochleistungsrechner Nord (HLRN) .

    Special Purpose Computing

    Participation in the development and astrophysical application of special purpose computers, in particular FPGA ) in combination with GRAPE (the GRACE = GRAPE + RACE or ASPH(E)RIC project. This research is in cooperation with Lehrstuhl 5, Technische Informatik at the Univ. Mannheim and the Max Planck Institut für Astronomie in Heidelberg, and a proposal for another SFB-Transregio is in the early planning stage. GRAPE (=GRAvity PipE) are extremely fast special purpose machines to compute direct gravitational forces in N-body simulations. They have been invented and designed at Dept. of Astronomy and Dept. of Earth Science and Astronomy of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tokyo ; nowadays GRAPE development is located at Hongo Campus and Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo . The collaborators in this project are:

  • Gerhard Lienhart , Andreas Kugel , Reiner Männer , Univ. Mannheim
    Markus Wetzstein, Andi Burkert , Univ. Observatory Munich
  • Jun Makino , Toshiyuki Fukushige , University of Tokyo

    The Members of the Gang:


    Former Members:


    Selected Conferences/Workshops

    Order and Chaos in Stellar and Planetary Systems , St. Peterburg, Russia, 17-24 August 2003 (to celebrate birthdays of T. Agekian (90) and V. Antonov (70).

    Joint Discussion No. 11 , Sydney, Australia, 18. July 2003, in the framework of XXVth IAU General Assembly

    JENAM2003 , Budapest, Hungary, 23-30 August 2003, Minisymposium on Galactic Dynamics

    JENAM2002 , Porto, Portugal, 3-7 September 2002, Workshop on Galactic Dynamics

    Euro-Conference The Evolution of Galaxies III. From Simple Approaches to Self-Consistent Models , July 15-20, 2002, Kiel, Germany

    Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets June 18-21, 2002, Washington D.C., USA

    New Horizons in Globular Cluster Astronomy , June 24-28, 2002, Padova, Italy

    JENAM2001 , Sept. 10-15, Munich, Germany, Mini-Symposium 5 Evolution of Galaxies - Observation and Dynamics

    Astrophysical Supercomputing using Particle Simulations , July 10-13, 2001, Tokyo, Japan

    star2000 - Dynamics of Star Clusters and The Milky Way International Spring Meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft March 20-24, 2000, Heidelberg, Germany, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Kalenderpatent

    The Blue Ribbon Campaign for Online Freedom of Speech, Press, and Association

    Comments or Problems:

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    Last update of this page: April 2005