ES-01-0007

Evolution of Exoplanetary Systems via Coupled MHD Stellar Formation & Multi-Scale Dynamical Simulations

Joseph Paul Glaser, Lillian Daneshmand, Sean Lewis, Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, Brooke Polak, Aaron Tran

Studying the lives of exoplanets formed inside star clusters, where the majority of stars are born, provides deeper insight into the vast diversity of planetary systems observed in the Galaxy. Due to the dense gas that surrounds star clusters, though, direct observation is often difficult, making computational simulations useful for studying these environments. However, modeling the full life-cycle of these clusters in a single simulation is currently computationally unrealistic. We propose a piece-wise approach: using <font size="2" face="Impact">Torch</font>, which creates physically accurate stellar clusters from a given molecular gas cloud, and bridging the gas-ejection end-state with <font face="Impact" size="2">Tycho</font>, which models the effects of stellar close encounters on planetary systems within clusters. This produces a fully realized stellar and planetary population which mimics the formation environments commonly believed to be the galactic norm. In this work, we detail one such realization (referred to as the Valoo Cluster), simulated on a single moderate-level HPC node over the course of a few weeks, as a proof-of-concept for the power of this methodology.