The efforts of theoretical and computational astrophysics in ASIAA date back to the CFD-MHD initiative, established in 2000, as a Key Project of the Academia Sinica. The CFD-MHD initiative started as a joint research project of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA), the Institute of Mathematics (ASIM) of the Academia Sinica, and the Department of Mathematics of the National Taiwan University. Its main goal was to develop high-performance codes of computational fluid dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics (CFD-MHD) for astrophysical problems. Built upon Prof. Chi Yuan’s vision, the first grass-root solver for astrophysical fluid in Taiwan, Antares, was made with the 2nd-order Godunov scheme with exact/approximate Riemann solvers.
The name of CFD-MHD was changed into CompAS in Feb. 2012 for Computational Astrophysics, for the generalization of scopes into the broad context of computational astrophysics. Applications of the Antares suites of codes include structure and evolution of gas disks in spiral galaxies, planet migration in protoplanetary disks, planet-disk interactions, and the formation of the circumplanetary disks.
The new CompAS (now Computational Astrophysics Code and Algorithm Development) group continues to thrive from the founding CFD-MHD effort in code and algorithm development for theoretical and computational astrophysics. Since the inception of the first Antares code in 2D in the early 2000’, the group has not only been able to advance on algorithm development but also been the key incubator for several new platforms of different designs. The ongoing efforts are staying at the forefront of numerical algorithms and technologies of scientific computation.
