735 citations · 4.6k across the 74 of their papers we have counts for
75 papers
The MICA Experiment: Astrophysics in Virtual Worlds
S. G. Djorgovski, Piet Hut, Rob Knop +9
We describe the work of the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based in virtual worlds. MICA was an experiment in…
Few-Body Modes of Binary Formation in Core Collapse
Ataru Tanikawa, Douglas C. Heggie, Piet Hut +1
At the moment of deepest core collapse, a star cluster core contains less than ten stars. This small number makes the traditional treatment of hard binary formation, assuming a hom…
PSDF: Particle Stream Data Format for N-Body Simulations
Will M. Farr, Jeff Ames, Piet Hut +6
We present a data format for the output of general N-body simulations, allowing the presence of individual time steps. By specifying a standard, different N-body integrators and di…
Unexpected Formation Modes of the First Hard Binary in Core Collapse
Ataru Tanikawa, Piet Hut, Junichiro Makino
The conventional wisdom for the formation of the first hard binary in core collapse is that three-body interactions of single stars form many soft binaries, most of which are quick…
Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA)
S. G. Djorgovski, P. Hut, S. McMillan +4
We describe the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based exclusively in virtual worlds (VWs). The goals of MICA ar…
An Experiment in Using Virtual Worlds for Scientific Visualization of Self-Gravitating Systems
Will M. Farr, Piet Hut, Jeff Ames +1
In virtual worlds, objects fall straight down. By replacing a few lines of code to include Newton's gravity, virtual world software can become an N-body simulation code with visual…