gravitational potential is positive *and* negative?

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Gareth Few

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May 16, 2019, 4:15:27 AM5/16/19
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Dear Ramsers,

I am having a little trouble understanding the gravitational potential output by Ramses. This is output in the gravity files for the grid and the particle files also.

My question is, why does the potential have positive and negative values? And is there some conversion to recover, say, gravitational potential energy?
Or have I perhaps fallen foul of something and should be getting positive and negative values at all?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Cheers,
Gareth

Romain Teyssier

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May 16, 2019, 4:21:21 AM5/16/19
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Hi Gareth,

What kind of simulations are you considering here ?

Romain
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Gareth Few

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May 16, 2019, 4:23:42 AM5/16/19
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Hi Romain,

Cosmological periodic volumes. Dark matter, stars, and  hydrodynamics are all used. Is there anything else that would make a difference?

Cheers,
Gareth

Dr C. Gareth Few, Milne Research Fellow
Email: c.gare...@gmail.com
Website: garethfew.com
Twitter: @galaxy_gareth
E.A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics
School of Mathematics & Physical Sciences
University of Hull
Hull, HU6 7RX, United Kingdom

Romain Teyssier

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May 16, 2019, 4:25:34 AM5/16/19
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If you are using periodic boundary conditions, then it is normal to have the potential changing sign.
The average is zero over the box.
Dense regions are the ones with the most negative values, while voids have positive values.

Romain

Gareth Few

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May 16, 2019, 4:37:11 AM5/16/19
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Thank you, that is reassuring!

Is there some way to recover the gravitational potential energy from that?
It seems like a simple shift in the zero-point is all that is needed but I don’t see how to calculate that. It must be a different baseline at each timestep, and presumably it isn’t just subtracting the largest value.

Cheers,
Gareth

Dr C. Gareth Few, Milne Research Fellow
Email: c.gare...@gmail.com
Website: garethfew.com
Twitter: @galaxy_gareth
E.A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics
School of Mathematics & Physical Sciences
University of Hull
Hull, HU6 7RX, United Kingdom
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