MESAHub / MESAHub/mesa

`star_utils:get_phot_info` should raise non-zero `ierr` if L < 0

Open
#280 8 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
Fortran
Stars
249
Forks
82
Avg merge
1d 3h
Merged PRs (30d)
3

Description

The various code paths in `star_utils:get_phot_info` currently avoid dealing with a negative luminosity (which causes problems in e.g. `set_phot_info` when trying to evaluate Teff ~ (L/4πR²σ)⁰·²⁵) by limiting the output luminosity to `max(1, L)`. As @adamjermyn suggested in [PR 278](https://github.com/MESAHub/mesa/pull/278), we should probably rather have the various routines raise a non-zero `ierr` rather than make up a value of `L` and pretend everything is OK.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Locate star_utils:get_phot_info and its callers, especially set_phot_info, and compare the proposed direction in PR 278. Trace each negative-luminosity path and verify that it returns a non-zero ierr instead of substituting max(1, L); done means callers can detect the error before evaluating the invalid Teff expression.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
fortran
Domain
hpc
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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