Re: [mesa-users] About some parameters in the samples

[Aaron D. <aar...@gm...>]

Hi Ming,

The test_suite directory contains many cases that demonstrate broad (but
incomplete) set of MESA capabilities.  However, some of these cases are
fairly advanced and not the best way to get started using the code.  The 15
Msun Si burn is there first and foremost as a test of MESA's ability to do
this challenging calculation.

In mesa/star/test/ you will find an inlist called
'inlist_first_thing_to_try' and this is a great place to start.  It's a very
simple example of a 3 Msun star.  Once you've read the inlist and done the
computation, you can start to modify the options in that inlist and/or add
additional parameters.

All of the parameters in the inlist must be found in either
mesa/star/test/src/run_star_defaults.dek or
mesa/star/public/star_defaults.dek.  You can read both of these files to
find the parameters and learn something about how they're used and what
typical values are.  For example, mesh_delta_coeff is set in the
mesh_adjustment section of star_defaults.dek.

There is no documentation (other than the source code) for MESA at present,
but it is something we are beginning to focus on.  If you have more specific
questions, feel free to ask on the mesa-users list.

Aaron