Heterogeneous Computing Environment	Tohline, Cazes & Cohl

Movie 1 presents an animation sequence that was produced entirely through our current heterogeneous computing environment. It shows the nonlinear development of a two-armed, spiral mode instability that develops spontaneously in rapidly rotating gas clouds.

Movie 1

Quicktime (5,906K)

Notice, in particular, that instead of producing a binary star system, this particular instability results in the formation of a centrally condensed, triaxial configuration that is spinning coherently at a well-defined "pattern" speed. Although the final configuration appears to be rotating as a solid body, it is not. Internally, the final configuration exhibits strong differential motions. Indeed, in some regions of the configuration the gas is moving at supersonic speeds. Movies 2, 3 and 4 illustrate the behavior of this differential flow inside the final triaxial configuration.