The physics of jets and compact stars during stellar evolution: Theoretical and computational investigations

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ASTROPHYSICAL JETS: These are long, highly collimated flows, with two back-to-back jets streaming away from their central source/object. They are seen in newly born stars, compact objects (like black holes or micro-quasars), active galactic nuclei, and are associated to gamma-ray bursts, the most energetic events in the Universe. Despite their different physical scales, jets have strong morphological similarities, but questions like - what physics do they share? - or - can we find a universal mechanism of acceleration and collimation that operates in all scales? - remain a matter of debate. We employ high-performance computational studies (in 3 Dimensions) of jets from young stars carried out to unprecedented resolution and simulation scales of hundreds of Astronomical Units -- allowing for the first time a one-to-one comparison to Hubble Space Telescope observations of jets. Our goal is to study their ejection, acceleration mechanisms using the codes and visualizations tools we built and, to confront models of jets against observed jet properties. Ultimately, this work could lead to an understanding of the physics of jets and their role in the formation of stars and galaxies.