Benchmarks

SKIRT properly performs the major benchmarks published in the field to which the code is applicable, i.e. continuum dust radiative transfer for astrophysical systems. In fact, the SKIRT team participated in several recent benchmark efforts. The geometries, source spectra and dust properties needed for these benchmarks are built into SKIRT, so you can run them without changing the code. The SKIRT configuration file (ski file) for each benchmark is offered for download on the corresponding page:

• Ivezić et al. 1997: Spherically symmetric circumstellar dust shell
• Pascucci et al. 2004: Axisymmetric circumstellar dust disk
• Pinte et al. 2009: Polarization from scattering in an axisymmetric dust disk
• Camps et al. 2015: Stochastically heated dust grains
• Gordon et al. 2017: Dust slab externally illuminated by a star
• Peest et al. 2017: Polarization test cases