Force Error Optimization in Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics

We discuss capability of Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics to represent adequately the dynamics of self-gravitating systems, in particular for what regards the quality of approximation of force fields in the motion equations. When cubic spline kernels are used, we find that a good estimate of the pressure field cannot be obtained in non uniform situations using the commonly adopted scheme of adapting the kernel sizes to include a fixed number of neighbours. We find that a fixed number of neighbours gives the best approximation of just the intensity of the force field, while the determination of the direction of the force requires a number of neighbours which strongly depends on the particle position.