[mesa-users] SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND FOR MESA

[Wise, Michael]

Hi Siddhant,

I would just dive in. The best way to learn is by doing. Rich Townsend and the rest of the MESA team have done an amazing job in making the code easy to install. Go through the installation page if you haven’t already: http://mesa.sourceforge.net/prereqs.html#toc-1. Alternatively, you may wish to start with MESA-Web<http://mesa-web.asu.edu/index.html> or EZ-Web<http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~townsend/static.php?ref=ez-web>. Both of these pages will allow you to input parameters and receive the results through the browser. Those pages both contain some info on getting started with stellar evolution.

Start with simple runs, such as varying mass or metallicity. Study the output and compare to literature. MESA has a summer school every year that teaches various aspects of using the code. Most of those material have been archived at http://mesastar.org/teaching-materials and will give you ideas and skills in using MESA. There are many books and online courses on stellar evolution that should be consulted alongside using MESA. You’ve already found the mailing list. It can help you solve problems your problems, and give ideas in how to perform various studies using MESA. Search it often. http://sourceforge.net/p/mesa/mailman/mesa-users/ . Eventually you may like to look through other papers that have used MESA. https://www.google.com/search?q=mesa+site%3Aarxiv.org#q=mesa+site:arxiv.org .

MESA outputs large amounts of data which can be overwhelming to study. There are several tools at http://mesastar.org/tools-utilities that organize and plot the data. Included among these is MESAplot, which uses python (wxpython, matplotlib, numpy libraries) to plot data in a user interface. http://mleewise.com/mesaplot.php .

Good luck,
Michael

From: siddhant solanki [mailto:siddhantsolanki321 at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2016 10:32 AM
To: MESA-users at lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: [mesa-users] SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND FOR MESA

Dear all,
I am a high school student and have started with MESA, however I feel that I must do some research and have some insight into stellar evolution before I start MESA.
Can anyone please tell me whether I should continue from the MESA site and learn every new term I come across or should I do a basic or perhaps an advanced course in stellar astronomy before I start MESA.
Also please give me some additional material links if thy are necessary.
Thanks
SIDDHANT

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