Equations of State

In this chapter on equations of state, we list the EOS routines available for your use, and then we describe the correct structure of an EOS module in case you want to build your own.

Available Equations of State

The following equations of state are available in Microphysics. Except where noted, each of these EOSs will provide the full thermodynamic data (including all derivatives) in the eos_t type.

gamma_law

gamma_law represents a gamma law gas, with equation of state:

\[p = (\gamma - 1) \rho e.\]

\(\gamma\) is specified by the runtime parameter eos_gamma. For an ideal gas, this represents the ratio of specific heats. The gas is assumed to be ideal, with the pressure given by

\[p = \frac{\rho k T}{\mu m_u}\]

where \(k\) is Boltzmann’s constant and \(\mu\) is the mean molecular weight, calculated from the composition, \(X_k\). This EOS assumes the gas is either completely neutral (assume_neutral = T), giving:

\[\mu^{-1} = \sum_k \frac{X_k}{A_k}\]

or completely ionized (assume_neutral = F), giving:

\[\mu^{-1} = \sum_k \left ( 1 + Z_k \right ) \frac{X_k}{A_k}\]

The entropy comes from the Sackur-Tetrode equation. Because of the complex way that composition enters into the entropy, the entropy formulation here is only correct for a \(\gamma = 5/3\) gas.

Note that the implementation provided in Microphysics is the same as the version shipped with MAESTRO, but more general than the gamma_law EOS provided with CASTRO. CASTRO’s default EOS only fills the thermodynamic information in eos_t that is required by the hydrodynamics module in CASTRO.

polytrope

polytrope represents a polytropic fluid, with equation of state:

\[p = K \rho^\gamma.\]

The gas is also assumed to obey the above gamma law relation connecting the pressure and internal energy. Therefore \(\rho\) is the only independent variable; there is no temperature dependence. The user either selects from a set of predefined options reflecting physical polytropes (e.g. a non-relativistic, fully degenerate electron gas) or inputs their own values for \(K\) and \(\gamma\) via polytrope_K and polytrope_gamma.

The runtime parameter polytrope_type selects the pre-defined polytropic relations. The options are:

polytrope_type = 1: sets \(\gamma = 5/3\) and

\[K = \left ( \frac{3}{\pi} \right)^{2/3} \frac{h^2}{20 m_e m_p^{5/3}} \frac{1}{\mu_e^{5/3}}\]

where \(mu_e\) is the mean molecular weight per electron, specified via polytrope_mu_e

This is the form appropriate for a non-relativistic fully-degenerate electron gas.
polytrope_type = 2: sets \(\gamma = 4/3\) and

\[K = \left ( \frac{3}{\pi} \right)^{1/3} \frac{hc}{8 m_p^{4/3}} \frac{1}{\mu_e^{4/3}}\]

This is the form appropriate for a relativistic fully-degenerate electron gas.

ztwd

ztwd is the zero-temperature degenerate electron equation of state of Chandrasekhar (1935), which is designed to describe white dward material. The pressure satisfies the equation:

\[p(x) = A \left( x(2x^2-3)(x^2 + 1)^{1/2} + 3\, \text{sinh}^{-1}(x) \right),\]

with \(A = \pi m_e^4 c^5 / (3 h^3)\). Here \(x\) is a dimensionless measure of the Fermi momentum, with \(\rho = B x^3\) and \(B = 8\pi \mu_e m_p m_e^3 c^3 / (3h^3)\), where \(\mu_e\) is the mean molecular weight per electron and \(h\) is the Planck constant.

The enthalpy was worked out by Hachisu (1986):

\[h(x) = \frac{8A}{B}\left(x^2 + 1\right)^{1/2}.\]

(note the unfortunate notation here, but this \(h\) is specific enthalpy). The specific internal energy satisfies the standard relationship to the specific enthalpy:

\[e = h - p / \rho.\]

Since the pressure-density relationship does not admit a closed-form solution for the density in terms of the pressure, if we call the EOS with pressure as a primary input then we do Newton-Raphson iteration to find the density that matches this pressure.

multigamma

multigamma is an ideal gas equation of state where each species can have a different value of \(\gamma\). This mainly affects how the internal energy is constructed as each species, represented with a mass fraction \(X_k\) will have its contribution to the total specific internal energy take the form of \(e = p/\rho/(\gamma_k - 1)\). The main thermodynamic quantities take the form:

\[\begin{split}\begin{aligned} p &= \frac{\rho k T}{m_u} \sum_k \frac{X_k}{A_k} \\ e &= \frac{k T}{m_u} \sum_k \frac{1}{\gamma_k - 1} \frac{X_k}{A_k} \\ h &= \frac{k T}{m_u} \sum_k \frac{\gamma_k}{\gamma_k - 1} \frac{X_k}{A_k}\end{aligned}\end{split}\]

We recognize that the usual astrophysical \(\bar{A}^{-1} = \sum_k X_k/A_k\), but now we have two other sums that involve different \(\gamma_k\) weightings.

The specific heats are constructed as usual,

\[\begin{split}\begin{aligned} c_v &= \left . \frac{\partial e}{\partial T} \right |_\rho = \frac{k}{m_u} \sum_k \frac{1}{\gamma_k - 1} \frac{X_k}{A_k} \\ c_p &= \left . \frac{\partial h}{\partial T} \right |_p = \frac{k}{m_u} \sum_k \frac{\gamma_k}{\gamma_k - 1} \frac{X_k}{A_k}\end{aligned}\end{split}\]

and it can be seen that the specific gas constant, \(R \equiv c_p - c_v\) is independent of the \(\gamma_i\), and is simply \(R = k/m_u\bar{A}\) giving the usual relation that \(p = R\rho T\). Furthermore, we can show

\[\Gamma_1 \equiv \left . \frac{\partial \log p}{\partial \log \rho} \right |_s = \left ( \sum_k \frac{\gamma_k}{\gamma_k - 1} \frac{X_k}{A_k} \right ) \bigg / \left ( \sum_k \frac{1}{\gamma_k - 1} \frac{X_k}{A_k} \right ) = \frac{c_p}{c_v} \equiv \gamma_\mathrm{effective}\]

and \(p = \rho e (\gamma_\mathrm{effective} - 1)\).

This equation of state takes several runtime parameters that can set the \(\gamma_i\) for a specific species. The parameters are:

eos_gamma_default: the default \(\gamma\) to apply for all species
species_X_name and species_X_gamma: set the \(\gamma_i\) for the species whose name is given as species_X_name to the value provided by species_X_gamma. Here, X can be one of the letters: a, b, or c, allowing us to specify custom \(\gamma_i\) for up to three different species.

helmholtz

helmholtz contains a general, publicly available stellar equation of state based on the Helmholtz free energy, with contributions from ions, radiation, and electron degeneracy, as described in [TimmesArnett99], [TimmesSwesty00], [FryxellOlsonRicker+00].

We have modified this EOS a bit to fit within the context of our codes. The vectorization is explicitly thread-safe for use with OpenMP and OpenACC. In addition, we have added the ability to perform a Newton-Raphson iteration so that if we call the EOS with density and energy (say), then we will iterate over temperature until we find the temperature that matches this density–energy combination. If we cannot find an appropriate temperature, we will reset it to small_temp, which needs to be set in the equation of state wrapper module in the code calling this. However, there is a choice of whether to update the energy to match this temperature, respecting thermodynamic consistency, or to leave the energy alone, respecting energy conservation. This is controlled through the eos.eos_input_is_constant parameter in your inputs file.

We thank Frank Timmes for permitting us to modify his code and publicly release it in this repository.

stellarcollapse

stellarcollapse is the equation of state module provided on http://stellarcollapse.org. It is designed to be used for core-collapse supernovae and is compatible with a large number of equations of state that are designed to describe matter near nuclear density. You will need to download an appropriate interpolation table from that site to use this.

Interface and Modes

The EOS is called as:

eos(mode, eos_type)

where mode determines which thermodynamic quantities are inputs, and is one of:

eos_input_rt : density and temperature are inputs
eos_input_rh : density and specific enthalpy are inputs
eos_input_tp : temperature and pressure are inputs
eos_input_rp : density and pressure are inputs
eos_input_re : density and specific internal energy are inputs
eos_input_ps : pressure and entropy are inputs
eos_input_ph : pressure and specific enthalpy are inputs
eos_input_th : temperature and specific enthalpy are inputs

The eos_type passed in is one of

eos_t : provides access to all available thermodynamic information, including derivatives.
eos_re_t : only provides the energy-based thermodynamic information, including energy derivatives.
eos_rep_t : expands on eos_re_t to include pressure information

In general, you should use the type that has the smallest set of information needed, since we optimize out needless quantities at compile type (via C++ templating) for eos_re_t and eos_rep_t.

Note

All of these modes require composition as an input. Usually this is via the set of mass fractions, eos_t.xn[], but if USE_AUX_THERMO is set to TRUE, then we instead use the auxiliary quantities stored in eos_t.aux[].

Auxiliary Composition

With USE_AUX_THERMO=TRUE, we interpret the composition from the auxiliary variables. The auxiliary variables are

eos_state.aux[iye] : electron fraction, defined as

\[Y_e = \sum_k \frac{X_k Z_k}{A_k}\]
eos_state.aux[iabar] : the average mass of the nuclei, \(\bar{A}\), defined as:

\[\frac{1}{\bar{A}} = \sum_k \frac{X_k}{A_k}\]

In many stellar evolutions texts, this would be written as \(\mu_I\).
eos_state.aux[ibea] : the binding energy per nucleon (units of MeV), defined as

\[\left \langle \frac{B}{A} \right \rangle = \sum_k \frac{X_k B_k}{A_k}\]

where \(B_k\) is the binding energy of nucleus \(k\)

Given a composition of mass fractions, the function set_aux_comp_from_X(state_t& state) will initialize these auxiliary quantities.

The equation of state also needs \(\bar{Z}\) which is easily computed as

\[\bar{Z} = \bar{A} Y_e\]

Initialization and Cutoff Values

Input Validation

The EOS will make sure that the inputs are within an acceptable range, (e.g., small_temp \(< T <\) maxT). If they are not, then it resets them silently—no error is thrown.

If you are calling the EOS with eos_input_re, and if \(e < 10^{-200}\), then it calls the EOS with eos_input_rt with T = max ( small_temp, T ).

User’s are encourage to do their own validation of inputs before calling the EOS.

EOS Structure

Each EOS should have two main routines by which it interfaces to the rest of CASTRO. At the beginning of the simulation, actual_eos_init will perform any initialization steps and save EOS variables (mainly smallt, the temperature floor, and smalld, the density floor). These variables are stored in the main EOS module of the code calling these routines. This would be the appropriate time for, say, loading an interpolation table into memory.

The main evaluation routine is called actual_eos. It should accept an eos_input and an eos_t state; see Section Data Structures.