[Mesa-users] New MESA Release r24.03.1

[Earl Bellinger]

Hi All,

We are pleased to announce the next public release of MESA, r24.03.1, which
can be downloaded from Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/records/10783349

For a complete list of important changes since the last release, see the
changelog
<https://docs.mesastar.org/en/release-r24.03.1/changelog.html#changes-in-r24-03-1>.
Here is a brief summary:

New Features

   1.

   shmesa: We have introduced a set of new command-line utilities for MESA,
   enabling operations such as changing inlist parameters (shmesa change)
   or filling in the full run_star_extras template (shmesa extras) from the
   command line. This now comes bundled with MESA; to use it you need to add
   it to your PATH. See the documentation
   <https://github.com/MESAHub/mesa/tree/main/scripts/shmesa> for
   instructions and the complete list of new functionality.
   2.

   Maximum Net Size Increase: The limit on isotopes in the nuclear network
   has been increased, subject to memory availability.
   3.

   Björklund Wind Scheme: Implementation of the Björklund et al. (2021)
   wind scheme is now available for all wind schemes.
   4.

   GYRE Update: The bundled GYRE oscillation code has been updated to
   release 7.1, with improved output formats and new features.
   5.

   White Dwarf O/Ne Phase Separation: Support for C/O or O/Ne phase
   diagrams during crystallization of white dwarfs.
   6.

   Massive Star test_suite Updates: Enhancements to the test suites for
   massive stars, ensuring compatibility with large reaction networks.
   7.

   New Rate Tables: Thirteen new rate tables for the C12(a,g)O16 rate are
   now included.
   8.

   Drag: The option to apply a drag term to the velocities in the outer
   envelope with the control drag_coefficient and min_q_for_drag was removed
   after version 15140, but has now been reintroduced. The logical control
   use_drag_energy has been introduced as well, so users can decide whether
   the drag energy is included in the energy equation. We also provide an
   additional option to turn off the velocities above a desired optical depth
   with the control velocity_tau_lower_bound.


Backwards-Incompatible Changes

   1.

   The other_pressure hook now utilizes auto_diff, allowing for the setting
   of partial derivatives of the pressure with respect to other variables.
   2.

   Extra history values in run_star_extras are now consistently saved as
   floats to avoid errors.
   3.

   The default values for delta_nu_sun and nu_max_sun in the asteroseismic
   scaling relations have been updated according to Lund et al. (2017), and
   Teff_sun is renamed to astero_Teff_sun for clarity, with the default
   value coming from IAU 2015 Resolution B3.


Bug Fixes

   1.

   ZAMS Model Data Correction: Rectification of the issue where stars
   between 1.0 and 1.58 Msun had lower starting central hydrogen mass
   fractions.
   2.

   Atmosphere Options Reimplementation: Reintroduction of fixed_Teff,
   fixed_Tsurf, fixed_Psurf, and fixed_Psurf_and_Tsurf atmosphere options.
   3.

   EOS coverage regions have been updated to fall back to ideal gas in a
   region previously covered by HELM with unphysical output.



With thanks to the following members of the community for contributions:

Dylan Simon, Mathieu Renzo, Michael Zingale, Tryston Raecke, and Susmita Das

We are happy to announce that a new member has joined the MESA developers
team: Ebraheem Farag. As always, the full list of current MESA developers
can be found here:

    https://docs.mesastar.org/en/latest/about.html#developers

Two members have left the MESA development team since our last release.
Many thanks to Rob Farmer and Aaron Dotter for their years of contributions
to this project, and best of luck to them in their next adventures!

We welcome contributions from the community. If you want to contribute to
MESA, we have a guide:
<https://docs.mesastar.org/en/r21.12.1/developing/contributing.html>

    https://docs.mesastar.org/en/latest/contributing.html

Contributions can take many forms, including bug reports, documentation
fixes, and new code or science. Not everyone has to be a coder to
contribute. If you have something you want to contribute but have doubts
about it, then feel free to reach out to any of the MESA developers and we
can provide help and guidance.

Cheers,

Earl, on behalf of the MESA developers
<https://docs.mesastar.org/en/latest/about.html#developers>: Warrick Ball,
Evan Bauer, Earl Bellinger, Lars Bildsten, Matteo Cantiello, Matthias
Fabry, Ebraheem Farag, Eoin Farrell, Meridith Joyce, Pablo Marchant, Joey
Mombarg, Radek Smolec, Anne Thoul, Frank Timmes, Rich Townsend, & Bill Wolf
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