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Clouds are expected to form in a wide range of conditions in the atmosphere of exoplanets given the large range of possible condensible species. However this diversity might lead to very different small-scale dynamics depending on radiative transfer in various thermal conditions: we aim at providing some insights into these dynamical regimes. We perform an analytical linear stability analysis of a compositional discontinuity with a heating source term that depends on composition. We also perform idealized two-dimensional (2D) simulations of an opacity discontinuity in a stratified medium with the code ARK. We use a two-stream grey model for radiative transfer and explore the brown-dwarf and earth-like regimes. We reveal the existence of a Radiative Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RRTI hereafter, a particular case of diabatic Rayleigh-Taylor instability) when an opacity discontinuity is present in a stratified medium. This instability is similar in nature to diabatic convection and relies only on buoyancy with radiative transfer heating and cooling. When the temperature is decreasing with height in the atmosphere, a lower-opacity medium on top of a higher-opacity medium is dynamically unstable while a higher-opacity medium on top of a lower-opacity medium is stable. This stability/instability behavior is reversed if the temperature is increasing with height. The existence of the RRTI could have important implications for the stability of the cloud cover of a wide range of planetary atmospheres. In our solar system, it could help explain the formation of mammatus cloud in Earth atmospheres and the existence of Venus cloud deck. Likewise, it suggests that stable and large scale cloud covers could be ubiquitous in strongly irradiated exoplanets but might be more patchy in low-irradiated or isolated objects like brown dwarfs and directly imaged exoplanets., Comment: Accepted in A&A

We investigate the impact on convective numerical simulations of thermo-compositional diabatic processes. We focus our study on simulations with a stabilizing temperature gradient and a destabilizing mean-molecular weight gradient. We aim to establish the possibility for a reduced temperature-gradient in such setups. A suite of 3D simulations were conducted using a numerical hydrodynamic code. We used as a simplified test case, a sample region of the secondary atmosphere of a hot rocky exoplanet within which the chemical transition CO+O $\leftrightarrow$ CO$_{2}$ could occur. Newtonian cooling and a chemical source term was used to maintain a negative mean molecular weight gradient. Our results demonstrate that this setup can reduce the temperature gradient, a result which does not converge away with resolution or over time. We also show that the presence of the reduced temperature gradient is a function of the forcing timescales. The above transition leads to a bifurcation of the temperature profile when the chemical forcing is fast, reminiscent of the bifurcation seen in the boiling crisis for steam/liquid convection. With the reduced temperature gradient in these idealized setups, there exists the possibility for an analogy of the reddening (currently observed in the spectra of brown dwarfs) in the spectra of rocky exoplanet atmospheres. Detailed 1D modelling is needed, in order to characterize the equilibrium thermal and compositional gradients, the timescales, and the impact of a realistic equation of state, in order to assess if the regime identified here will develop in realistic situations. This possibility cannot, however, be excluded a priori. This prediction is new for terrestrial atmospheres and represents strong motivation for the use of diabatic models when analysing atmospheric spectra of rocky exoplanets that will be observed with e.g. the James Webb Space Telescope., Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures

Numerical codes using the Lattice Boltzmann Methods (LBM) for simulating one- or two-phase flows are widely compiled and run on graphical process units. However, those computational units necessitate to re-write the program by using a low-level language which is suited to those architectures (e.g. CUDA for GPU NVIDIA or OpenCL). In this paper we focus our effort on the performance portability of LBM i.e. the possibility of writing LB algorithms with a high-level of abstraction while remaining efficient on a wide range of architectures such as multicores x86, GPU NVIDIA, ARM, and so on. For such a purpose, implementation of LBM is carried out by developing a unique code, LBM_saclay written in the C++ language, coupled with the Kokkos library for performance portability in the context of High Performance Computing. In this paper, the LBM is used to simulate a phase-field model for two-phase flow problems with phase change. The mathematical model is composed of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the conservative Allen-Cahn model. Initially developed in the literature for immiscible binary fluids, the model is extended here to simulate phase change occurring at the interface between liquid and gas. For that purpose, a heat equation is added with a source term involving the time derivative of the phase field. In the phase-field equation a source term is added to approximate the mass production rate at the interface. Several validations are carried out to check step-by-step the implementation of the full model. Finally, computational times are compared on CPU and GPU platforms for the physical problem of film boiling., Comment: 25 pages, 37 figures

Convection is an important physical process in astrophysics well-studied using numerical simulations under the Boussinesq and/or anelastic approximations. However these approaches reach their limits when compressible effects are important in the high Mach flow regime, e.g. in stellar atmospheres or in the presence of accretion shocks. In order to tackle these issues, we propose a new high performance and portable code, called "ARK" with a numerical solver well-suited for the stratified compressible Navier-Stokes equations. We take a finite volume approach with machine precision conservation of mass, transverse momentum and total energy. Based on previous works in applied mathematics we propose the use of a low Mach correction to achieve a good precision in both low and high Mach regimes. The gravity source term is discretized using a well-balanced scheme in order to reach machine precision hydrostatic balance. This new solver is implemented using the Kokkos library in order to achieve high performance computing and portability across different architectures (e.g. multi-core, many-core, and GP-GPU). We show that the low-Mach correction allows to reach the low-Mach regime with a much better accuracy than a standard Godunov-type approach. The combined well-balanced property and the low-Mach correction allowed us to trigger Rayleigh-B\'enard convective modes close to the critical Rayleigh number. Furthermore we present 3D turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection with low diffusion using the low-Mach correction leading to a higher kinetic energy power spectrum. These results are very promising for future studies of high Mach and highly stratified convective problems in astrophysics., Comment: Accepted in APJ

By generalizing the theory of convection to any type of thermal and compositional source terms (diabatic processes), we show that thermohaline convection in Earth oceans, fingering convection in stellar atmospheres, and moist convection in Earth atmosphere are deriving from the same general diabatic convective instability. We show also that "radiative convection" triggered by CO/CH4 transition with radiative transfer in the atmospheres of brown dwarfs is analog to moist and thermohaline convection. We derive a generalization of the mixing length theory to include the effect of source terms in 1D codes. We show that CO/CH4 radiative convection could significantly reduce the temperature gradient in the atmospheres of brown dwarfs similarly to moist convection in Earth atmosphere thus possibly explaining the reddening in brown-dwarf spectra. By using idealized two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations in the Ledoux unstable regime, we show that compositional source terms can indeed provoke a reduction of the temperature gradient. The L/T transition could be explained by a bifurcation between the adiabatic and diabatic convective transports and could be seen as a giant cooling crisis: an analog of the boiling crisis in liquid/steam-water convective flows. This mechanism with other chemical transitions could be present in many giant and earth-like exoplanets. The study of the impact of different parameters (effective temperature, compositional changes) on CO/CH4 radiative convection and the analogy with Earth moist and thermohaline convection is opening the possibility to use brown dwarfs to better understand some aspects of the physics at play in the climate of our own planet., Comment: accepted in ApJ

Many physical problems involve spatial and temporal inhomogeneities that require a very fine discretization in order to be accurately simulated. Using an adaptive mesh, a high level of resolution is used in the appropriate areas while keeping a coarse mesh elsewhere. This idea allows to save time and computations, but represents a challenge for distributed-memory environments. The MARS project (for Multiphase Adaptative Refinement Solver) intends to assess the parallel library p4est for adaptive mesh, in a case of a finite volume scheme applied to two-phase flows. Besides testing the library's performances, particularly for load balancing, its user-friendliness in use and implementation are also exhibited here. First promising 3D simulations are even presented.

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence driven by the magnetorotational instability can provide diffusive transport of angular momentum in astrophysical disks, and a widely studied computational model for this process is the ideal, stratified, isothermal shearing box. Here we report results of a convergence study of such boxes up to a resolution of $N = 256$ zones per scale height, performed on blue waters at NCSA with ramses-gpu. We find that the time and vertically integrated dimensionless shear stress $\overline{\alpha} \sim N^{-1/3}$, i.e. the shear stress is resolution dependent. We also find that the magnetic field correlation length decreases with resolution, $\lambda \sim N^{-1/2}$. This variation is strongest at the disk midplane. We show that our measurements of $\alpha$ are consistent with earlier studies. We discuss possible reasons for the lack of convergence., Comment: 35 pages, 9 figures, submitted to ApJ. Comments welcome

This work focuses on the numerical approximation of the Shallow Water Equations (SWE) using a Lagrange-Projection type approach. We propose to extend to this context recent implicit-explicit schemes developed in the framework of compressibleflows, with or without stiff source terms. These methods enable the use of time steps that are no longer constrained by the sound velocity thanks to an implicit treatment of the acoustic waves, and maintain accuracy in the subsonic regime thanks to an explicit treatment of the material waves. In the present setting, a particular attention will be also given to the discretization of the non-conservative terms in SWE and more specifically to the well-known well-balanced property. We prove that the proposed numerical strategy enjoys important non linear stability properties and we illustrate its behaviour past several relevant test cases.

The Scientific Trigger Unit (UTS) is a satellite equipment designed to detect Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) observed by the onboard 6400 pixels camera ECLAIRs. It is foreseen to equip the low-Earth orbit French-Chinese satellite SVOM and acts as the GRB trigger unit for the mission. The UTS analyses in real-time and in great details the onboard camera data in order to select the GRBs, to trigger a spacecraft slew re-centering each GRB for the narrow field-of-view instruments, and to alert the ground telescope network for GRB follow-up observations. A few GRBs per week are expected to be observed by the camera; the UTS targets a close to 100% trigger efficiency, while being selective enough to avoid fake alerts. This is achieved by running the complex scientific algorithms on a radiation tolerant hardware, based on a FPGA data pre-processor and a CPU with a Real-Time Operating System. The UTS is a scientific software, firmware and hardware co-development. A Data Processing Model (DPM) has been developed to fully validate all the technical choices deeply impacted by the ITAR restriction applied to the development. The DPM permits to evaluate the processing power and the memory bandwidth, and to adjust the balance load between software and firmware. This paper presents the UTS DPM functionalities and architecture. It highlights the results obtained with the full GRB trigger algorithms implemented on a rad-tolerant ITAR-free processor., Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, published in Proceedings of IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC), Issue Date: Oct. 27 2013-Nov. 2 2013

The on-board Scientific Trigger Unit (UTS) is designed to detect Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) in real-time, using the data produced by the ECLAIRs camera, foreseen to equip the future French-Chinese satellite mission SVOM (Space-based Variable Objects Monitor). The UTS produces GRB alerts, sent to the ground for GRB follow-up observations, and requests the spacecraft slew to repoint its narrow field instruments onto the GRB afterglow. Because of the diversity of GRBs in duration and variability, two simultaneously running GRB trigger algorithms are implemented in the UTS, the so called Image Trigger performing systematic sky image reconstruction on time scales above 20 s, and the Count-Rate Trigger, selecting a time scale from 10 ms to 20 s showing an excess in count-rate over background estimate, prior to imaging the excess for localization on the sky. This paper describes both trigger algorithms and their implementation in a library, compiled for the Scientific Software Model (SSM) running on standard Linux machines, and which can also be cross-compiled for the Data Processing Model (DPM), in order to have the same algorithms running on both platforms. While the DPM permits to validate the hardware concept and benchmark the algorithms (see paper II), the SSM allows to optimize the algorithms and estimate the GRB trigger-rate of ECLAIRs/UTS. The result of running on the SSM a dynamic photon by photon simulation based on the BATSE GRB catalog is presented., Comment: 5 pages, 10 figures, published in Proceedings of IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC), Issue Date: Oct. 27 2013-Nov. 2 2013

The multifractal nature of solar photospheric magnetic structures are studied using the 2D wavelet transform modulus maxima (WTMM) method. This relies on computing partition functions from the wavelet transform skeleton defined by the WTMM method. This skeleton provides an adaptive space-scale partition of the fractal distribution under study, from which one can extract the multifractal singularity spectrum. We describe the implementation of a multiscale image processing segmentation procedure based on the partitioning of the WT skeleton which allows the disentangling of the information concerning the multifractal properties of active regions from the surrounding quiet-Sun field. The quiet Sun exhibits a average H\"older exponent $\sim -0.75$, with observed multifractal properties due to the supergranular structure. On the other hand, active region multifractal spectra exhibit an average H\"older exponent $\sim 0.38$ similar to those found when studying experimental data from turbulent flows., Comment: accepted for publication in ApJ

We propose and test a wavelet transform modulus maxima method for the au- tomated detection and extraction of coronal loops in extreme ultraviolet images of the solar corona. This method decomposes an image into a number of size scales and tracks enhanced power along each ridge corresponding to a coronal loop at each scale. We compare the results across scales and suggest the optimum set of parameters to maximise completeness while minimising detection of noise. For a test coronal image, we compare the global statistics (e.g., number of loops at each length) to previous automated coronal-loop detection algorithms.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) sign energetic explosions in the Universe, occurring at cosmological distances. Multi-wavelength observations of GRB allow to study their properties and to use them as cosmological tools. In 2012 the space borne gamma-ray telescope ECLAIRs is expected to provide accurate GRB localizations on the sky in near real-time, necessary for ground-based follow-up observations. Led by CEA Saclay, France, the project is currently in its technical design phase. ECLAIRs is optimized to detect highly red-shifted GRB thanks to a 4 keV low energy threshold. A coded mask telescope with a 1024 cm^2 detection plane of 80x80 CdTe pixels permanently observes a 2 sr sky field. The on-board trigger detects GRB using count-rate increase monitors on multiple time-scales and cyclic images. It computes sky images in the 4-50 keV energy range by de-convolving detector plane images with the mask pattern and localizes newly detected sources with <10 arcmin accuracy. While individual GRB photons are available hours later, GRB alerts are transmitted over a VHF network within seconds to ground, in particular to robotic follow-up telescopes, which refine GRB localizations to the level needed by large spectroscopic telescopes. This paper describes the ECLAIRs concept, with emphasis on the GRB triggering scheme., Comment: 4 pages, proceedings of the "30^th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC)", 3-12 July 2007, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico

We use singular value decomposition techniques to generalize the wavelet transform modulus maxima method to the multifractal analysis of vector-valued random fields. The method is calibrated on synthetic multifractal 2D vector measures and monofractal 3D fractional Brownian vector fields. We report the results of some application to the velocity and vorticity fields issued from 3D isotropic turbulence simulations. This study reveals the existence of an intimate relationship between the singularity spectra of these two vector fields which are found significantly more intermittent than previously estimated from longitudinal and transverse velocity increment statistics., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PRL

We generalize the wavelet transform modulus maxima (WTMM) method to multifractal analysis of 3D random fields. This method is calibrated on synthetic 3D monofractal fractional Brownian fields and on 3D multifractal singular cascade measures as well as their random function counterpart obtained by fractional integration. Then we apply the 3D WTMM method to the dissipation field issue from 3D isotropic turbulence simulations. We comment on the need to revisiting previous box-counting analysis which have failed to estimate correctly the corresponding multifractal spectra because of their intrinsic inability to master non-conservative singular cascade measures., Comment: 5 pages, 3figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett