Inhuman Working Conditions

Can anyone please quench the Sun? Or at least fix the AC Unit in the Astrophysics lab? It is simply impossible to work, melting inside the lab! I will have to strike until I have human working conditions again! All I wish is another Ice Age! Please? Anyone?

Another Day, Another Step

It is been another day, and in this special day, nothing special really happened. Actually, I saw in the news that Iran just tested some long range missiles that stroke their targets accurately. I also discovered that Russia's president is not Vladimir Putin anymore. The new President is Dmitry Medvedev (cool name), and he loves the classical Hard Rock from the 70s and 80s. This guy loves Rock'n'Roll and has nuclear weapons, in just one word, AWESOME! Vladimir Putin now is the prime minister of the Russia Union. I was a little bit outdated on that.

For a while (past few weeks), I thought my code was working fine, but then I found out some inconsistencies in my results, and since two weeks ago I have been then working on that. It is still not working as I expect, and every day it got more and more tedious to debug that. So, no new step here, so far...

One day, I am going to write so many bizarre things here, that I think I will make someone else insane just for read them... Not today, though. Today the only person insane here is me, or maybe someone else, who is already insane, and will read it in the next couple of hours.

I do not think I am the only person in the world who has strange thoughts about Reality. But every time I think about it, for whatever the reason, it seems I simply go more insane. Comprehension and Insanity are best friends in my point of view.

Just to give you a taste of what crossed my mind in my way back home... I was in the bus, almost leaving it, thinking about a myriad things... I was hearing trance music, and then the thought came into my mind: "What if God is this sound sample (2 or 3 seconds of the music playing in my Creative Zen)? No... What if God is that number 3 painted in that wall? Three is a perfect concept after all... Was it?"

This was just a small string of the whole train of thought that started in the same moment I left the lab today. And after that I just became a little more insane... There is no way back, anymore! But whatever, I just love it...

Break... through... .sigh.

At long last, a small one, but a long sought breakthrough ... But I still hate Fortran 77!! More on that tomorrow...

My pre-cambrian communication device was also, finally, retired... It has been replaced by a more modern communication device, more akin to this geological Aeon and to the current state of technological development of the human civilization... :P

.sigh. (very tired)

The Lethean Waters washed it away...

Sometimes we write things that seem to be plain innocent to us, but when we realize we have already hurt someone, and this someone might be the last person in the world you want to hurt. I did that twice in a matter of hours, and I am deeply sorry...

Today I am going to Goiânia to meet my girlfriend and spend the rest of the week with her. I dreamed about this moment for four months, and I almost lose it all due to some misplaced words at the wrong time... I love her, and I don't want to lose her...

I will probably not write anything else until next week. This will be a holiday very far away from computers, and I am sure it will be worth the four months of waiting. I will also use this time to rethink some things in my life... Things that have to change, and I want her to help me with that.

From next week onwards, everything will already be settled here again, and I will start to post more again. I have to fill a report about my 10 months away in the United States, and then I have a lot work to do. And of course, the gaming season starts again! I can't stand any more time without playing RPG... I will use some of my spare time during this week to plan my next game session, and players be ready for some hack and slash! :P

Snow desert and interpolation problems

The winter is as harsh as it can be here in Ann Arbor. The city seems like a snow desert, in a sense that instead of sand being blown by the winds, you can see small particles of snow almost creating moving dunes of snow. Temperature has never ben so low. Sunday the temperature reached the -30oC, and we had winds of 60km/h and sometimes even surpassing the 100km/h. Of course, I just stayed quiet at home. At this moment, it is windy and snowing outside, and I am sure all the transportation system in the city is disrupted. I am still at the University, just gathering my courage to go outside and endure this "warm" weather (-20oC) while I wait the bus. And the adventure continues!! I love this place, and this cold!! :P

I guess I finally understood why the program I was modifying to calculate the line profiles I seek so vehemently is not working. One week ago I finished my modifications, and I was sure that after those modifications the code had to work perfectly, but it did not. So I spent the rest of the week trying to figure out why in the name of the Infinity Layers of the Abyss that god forsaken code was not working!! Just looking at my results I could figure out the problem was in the optical depths of each of the rays (the optical depth is a measure of how deep you can see a ray of light before the medium becomes opaque). The optical depth was becoming too large inside a region where it was not expected to be so large. Large optical depths mean one thing, and it means that the atomic level population densities where not being properly calculated.

I started to track the values of the population densities where the optical depth was becoming too large, and then I found something unusual. To calculate the optical depth between two points I have to calculate an integral between these points, and to calculate this integral I need the population densities in these two points. If I have two points very near, I don't expect the population densities to be very different, and what is happening is that near the edge of my wind the difference between these values for these two nearby points is very large (something like 10000 times from one point to another). And that was the reason why the optical depths are becoming too large in a very low density regions where they should be very, very, very small (instead of being something like 0.001, the values are something like 100, and it means that the ray is not able to cross a region where otherwise should be almost transparent).

Diving deeper in this problem I realize that the problem was in the interpolation function that was called by the program. The problem was that I have not changed that, so if the program was working before, it should be working now, but I decided to verify anyway. And after some debbuging, I could not find anything wrong with that. All the physical quantities being calculated by that function were correctly calculated. The grid file I have calculated to used as an input to this program was also perfect. Then I remember the flux program needs a input that is a little different from the one I give him, and to get this grid file I have to use another interpolation subroutine in IDL. I looked at this other grid file, and there was the cursed error!! The problem with the population densities appear just after I use the IDL program to re-grid the original grid file. There is a strange function it uses to interpolate called "Triangulate" that is causing this problem. I have no idea how this function works, but the problem surely is due to the fact that the problematic region is exactly in the border of the wind, and borders are usually problematic regions.

Now I just need to figure out how to solve this interpolation problem... And I don't think it will be easy... And my time keeps running out... 27 days left...

Relief

Now I am sure that I was not the only one that feels like I have written in my last post.

This is exactly how I was feeling!!

...of Eyelids, Classes, Blogs and House Invaders...

It is been a little while since I wrote here. I have been working a lot in these last two weeks, and when I got home my mind is so tired that I can barely think about something to write. And I realize today that I am really stressed. My eyelids are twitching non-stop since Tuesday, and the reason is probably related to stress. All my work is done in front of a computer, and sometimes I just focus my eyes at the screen, and I look at that intensely for hours and hours without realizing it. I also have been sleeping very little in these past days. My eyes must be really stressed.

At last, it is weekend and I guess I will rest my eyes a little bit for the next two days, or at least I will try it. Problem is: I have to work during the weekend too... Damn!!

My adviser is teaching "Stellar Astrophysics" in this term. I asked her if I could watch it, and she told me that I was welcome to go to the classes. It is weird, but after two years without having to worry about watching classes, and studying for exams, I was missing it. That was one of the main reasons that made me take this decision, the other reason is that I love this subject and I wanted to remember those things again. The only problem was that the classes were at 9:30AM, and to wake up around 7AM in this winter is an herculean effort. It is very cold, and it is still dark outside, so it is almost impossible to get out of bed. After watching her first class, last week, I was totally amazed. Her class is just PERFECT. After 10 years of Physics and Astrophysics, I am still to see someone teaching better than her. She is able to express everything with such clarity that it is almost impossible to have any lingering questions about it later. (Maybe I am exaggerating a little about it, but I am not writing it just because she is my adviser... So far her classes have been excellent.) The duration of the class is 1h30min, but after that time I am still very interested and eager to watch more and more... I don't even care anymore to wake up at 7AM two days a week to go to that class. Unfortunately for me, I won't be able to watch her class until the end, as I will return to Brazil just in the middle of the winter term here. She gave us some homework to do for next week, but she told me that I don't need to make the homeworks, after all I am not officially enrolled to her class and she also told me that I already have lots of work to do, but I am still thinking about solving some of the problems in the homework just for keep the mind sharp about the subject, and to try to remember things that should be somewhere lost in my head. (It is too nerdy to think like that...)

I had a lot of good teachers in Brazil, and very good ones by the way, but I can remember only one or two teachers that were able to be as clear as she is, but I still think she is the best. Maybe the reason for that is that I really love "Stellar Astrophysics", and now I am just in the class to remember things, and not really to learn any new thing. Maybe that counts to the fact that everything seems so clear to me... But none of the other students have any complain so far, actually they are really loving her class too.

I have already written here about my work blog, called "Stellar Xaos". I was really excited with that when I created it, but I have barely written anything there. There are two problems with that. The first is that I don't want to simply write about the things that I have done in one day, if I had made any progress in that day or not. I want to write when I really have something good to write, when I make some kind of breakthrough in my work, and things like that, and eventually write about the theory behind the work I am doing right now. So far, I am not having the time to write about any theory, and nothing excited happened. The work is progressing, but nothing worth to mention, yet... That is one of the reason I have not written anything new there for almost two weeks. The other thing is that the blog is hosted by Wordpress, and to be sincere, I don't like the limitations of that site. If I want to edit my template, for example, I have to pay a small fee, and that is not cool. They have a lot of interesting templates, but I would love to customize it. There are also other limitations regarding what features you can add to your blog.
So, it is very probable that I will change hosts, and as soon as I have something more excited to report, I will create another blog hosted by blogger.

In this very moment there are a lot of unknown people in my house, friends of my roommates. But I am very tired and lacking the patience for social rituals in this moment, so I am going to remain enclosed in my room. I just want peace and rest for my eyes right now...

My thought about Fortran 77

Fortran 77 is an ancient, outdated, confusing, damned computer programming language, that should be banned from science once and for all. And, yes, I hate it!

Future "Zombie"

When you start to think about not sleeping for a few days to work all night long, it means that you REALLY love what you do, or that you are REALLY late with your work... I REALLY love to sleep at night, so...

I will need a huge amount of cafeine in the next few days...

iiDevn ntispiorani

I am deeply needing a powerful and insightful divine inspiration... My mind is steadily frozen... I guess I need to talk with The Cube!!

And I also need a new computer in my office... My computer is cursed... (You cursed, overheating-friendly P4 HT... I hate you!!! Grrrrr.... ]-/ )

Neve, Cozinha, Bomba, Viagem, Trabalho

Ultimamente tenho escrito muitas coisas em inglês e a maioria delas, coisas sobre assuntos que ninguém se interessa muito. Entropia, aquecimento global, computadores e ciência, coisas sem sentido, e coisas até meio filosóficas. Devido a um certo fato ocorrido hoje, eu vou dar uma atualização geral sobre as ultimas coisas ocorridas aqui em Ann Arbor.

Como todos já devem saber ou imaginar, a temperatura aqui está ficando bem baixa ultimamente. É apenas Outono, mas o Outono daqui é muito pior que o Inverno em Belo Horizonte. As temperaturas já estão geralmente abaixo dos 10oC, todos os dias, e a noite sempre fica abaixo de zero. E semana passada, finalmente, caiu a primeira neve da estação. Duas vezes. Nevou muito pouco, e só bem cedo, e a neve caia no chão e já derretia. Nada de acúmulos, nem de paisagens brancas ainda, mas logo, logo, as coisas vão ficar brancas. A primeira vez, só me disseram que tinha nevado, foi bem cedo mesmo, e eu ainda estava dormindo. Da segunda vez, foi cedo, mas ainda deu pra ver do lado de fora, a neve caindo, quando eu acordei, mas quando eu sai de casa pra ir pra Universidade, a neve já tinha parado de cair. Já tinha visto neve antes, mas eu já estava ficando ansioso aqui pela primeira neve. Muito está por vir ainda, e quando estiver voltando pro Brasil, acho que vou estar cansado de neve por muito tempo. (Acho.)

No último sábado, o pessoal da Astronomia (alunos da pós) se juntou pra fazer um tal de "mock" Thanksgiving. Algo como um pré-Thanksgiving. Foi bem divertido, mas dessa vez eu decidi ficar sem beber. Mas de qualquer maneira valeu a pena, a comida estava ótima, e a companhia do pessoal também. Quem estava por conta da cozinha, era uma das alunas novas da Astronomia, e pelo que pude perceber, além dela cozinhar bem, ela adora cozinhar. E claro, ontem quando encontrei com ela no departamento, perguntei pra ela se ela não me ensinaria alguma coisa. Ha! Ela aceitou! Acho que vai ser divertido aprender a cozinhar alguma coisa de verdade. Agora ela está atrás de receitas brasileiras. Num futuro próximo, eu escrevo mais sobre isso.

Hoje foi um dia interessante, pra dizer o mínimo. Estava na minha sala, logo depois de chegar do almoço, quando de repente olho pela janela da sala, e vejo uma área do Campus isolada com aquelas faixas amarelas. Algumas pessoas ao redor da faixa olhando, andando de um lado para o outro sem saber o que era aquilo. De repente os outros alunos, no meu andar, começam a comentar também, mas ninguém fica sabendo do que se trata. Mais tarde fico sabendo que havia uma ameaça de bomba, e a área estava isolada devido a tal fato. Alguém deixou um pacote largado no ponto de ônibus, e isto já se torna uma grande ameaça. Uma área gigantesca ao redor do Campus foi isolada, um monte de policiais, e no final das contas era só um pacote largado. Nada de explosões. Foi engraçado. :P

Fiquei na Universidade até mais tarde hoje. Minha orientadora está preocupada com o andamento do meu projeto. Tenho muito o que fazer em pouco tempo. Sexta-feira vou viajar pra Washington DC. Vou visitar uma amiga que mora lá, e aproveitar pra conhecer a cidade. As pessoas me disseram que é um lugar bem legal de se conhecer. Tenho a impressão que vou gostar. Como viajo na sexta de manhã, e volto apenas na segunda a tarde, não devo trabalhar nem na sexta, e nem na segunda, então vou ter que compensar antes de viajar. Foi um dos motivos que me fez ficar até mais tarde na Universidade hoje. Quando cheguei em casa fiquei sabendo que o meio-irmão de um dos caras com quem eu divido a casa morreu num acidente de carro. Não tenho muito que falar sobre a situação.

Mas apesar das coisas estranhas, e não tão agradáveis. Alguns pequenos fatos fizeram o dia valer a pena. Tenho que trabalhar mais que o normal nestes próximos dias, mas eu não reclamo. Pelo menos eu sei o que devo fazer. O problema é quando eu fico perdido, e não sei por onde começar a fazer as coisas.

Situação geral do momento...

Após alguns dias sem Internet em casa, estou conectado novamente ao mundo. A temperatura aqui em Ann Arbor tem se mantido abaixo dos 20oC todos os dias, chegando a quase zero durante as noites. Tem uma chance bem grande da primeira neve cair ainda este mês, e eu estou torcendo pra isso. O calor que eu senti aqui, durante o verão, ainda precisa ser compensado, e acho que a partir de agora, só vou sentir calor novamente quando estiver de volta ao Brasil.

O trabalho está andando, finalmente. O meu código, como podem notar pelo "post" anterior, está finalmente funcionando, e aparentemente, funcionando bem. Os resultados do programa começam a fazer sentido, mas alguns detalhes ainda necessitam de ser acertados. Até o final desta semana, pretendo já estar com esta parte toda terminada. Após o término dessa parte, é hora de começar a fazer um estudo do espaço de parâmetros do programa, e comparar com os resultados antigos do programa, e então começar a modelar dados observacionais. Acho que já consigo começar a visualizar um artigo num futuro próximo, e um doutorado quase encaminhado! Oh Yeah!!

Está na hora de começar a pensar no que será de mim, após o doutorado. Adiei demais esse fatídico momento, mas estou ficando sem escolhas. Grande parte das minhas decisões futuras, vão depender diretamente das coisas que ainda estão pra acontecer por aqui, então, só após minha volta é que as coisas devem começar a tomar um pouco mais de forma na minha cabeça. E claro, existem outros fatores não-profissionais que podem influenciar numa escolha, mas só o tempo sabe o que o futuro me reserva, ainda.

Mas de uma coisa eu tenho certeza, após um tempo vivendo aqui, e algumas experiência na Europa, apesar da saudades que eu tenho do Brasil, eu ando ficando com preguiça demais de lá. Sinto saudades da família, de BH, dos amigos e da comida, não fosse isto, eu sinceramente, não teria vontade nenhuma de voltar. A maior diferença, e com certeza a coisa que eu vou mais sentir falta aqui, é o respeito que as pessoas, pelo menos demonstram ter, uma pelas outras. Não é igual no Brasil, onde cada um quer ser mais esperto que o outro, e no fim das contas, o que importa é passar a perna nos outros e sempre sair ganhando. (Este tal de "jeitinho" brasileiro é o que fode com o nosso país.) O grande motivo das coisas funcionarem da maneira correta por aqui está baseado nessa regra básica de convivência em sociedade. Eu vivo numa cidade relativamente pequena aqui, mas é uma cidade pequena que tem toda uma estrutura de cidade grande. Não falta nada aqui, aliás... falta apenas um restaurante com comida brasileira, que definitivamente, é a melhor comida do mundo! Eu não sei como é a vida numa cidade grande americana ainda, com certeza os problemas são parecidos com os problemas de uma cidade grande no Brasil, mas tenho certeza que numa escala menor. Em relação aos americanos estúpidos, felizmente ainda não encontrei nenhum deles, mas existem tantos brasileiros estúpidos quanto americanos e quanto gente de qualquer outra nacionalidade estúpida, o que muda é apenas o tipo de estupidez.

Antes de vir pra cá, eu não nego que tinha um certo preconceito contra os EEUU, mas após um tempo aqui, eu já vejo as coisas de uma maneira muito diferente. Os problemas existem aqui, como em qualquer outro lugar do mundo, mas são problemas que, geralmente, me revoltam menos do que certos problemas básicos brasileiros.

Preeliminary H-alpha line profiles

If you ever wondered about what in the Nine Hells of Baator does a theoretical astrophysicist do, wonder no more. Here is a glimpse of my preeliminary results. Two calculated H-alpha line profiles for a T Tauri star, the filled line shows the profile with only magnetospheric contribution (the original code, before my modifications ), and the trace-dotted line shows the profile with magneto-accretion plus diskwind contributions (after I modified the code). Beautiful, isn't it? A little more thinking is necessary to be sure that my code calculations are right, but at this moment I am almost sure they are.Now you are wondering about what is a T Tauri star, or what is magnetospheric accretion (a.k.a. magneto-accretion), and what is diskwind, right? And surely, you also wonder about why the difference in both plots are so important. Ok. I will explain those issues at another day. But at least, now you know about the kind of results that I am seeking, and that hopefully will grant me a PhD. degree in the near future.

Primary Mission Objectives Complete (?)

The code is ready, and running!!! Yeah!!! I have calculated the first H-alpha line profiles with the my new code, and as far as I could notice, the results are fairly good. Tomorrow I will start to compare results from my new code with the results from the old code, to see if there is any kind of inconsistency.

At least, I am not expecting many inconsistencies anymore. I have a feeling, looking at the values I had obtained that they were fairly good. I just hope that my intuition is correct about that...

I had it all working before the end of the week, before my self-instated deadline... \m/,

Something hidden in the deepest recesses of my mind worries me though... something very subtle... hmmm...

Code almost ready, and running...

...and so, at long last, I have solved the problem that was haunting me during this past month. My code is almost ready, and as far as I know, it is working properly. The main coding is ready, and with some other small changes in the last routine, everything will be working soon... I expect to have it ready by the end of this week.

During this past month I have barely touched the code. My adviser decided to give me some other task, and I was working with that for the past few weeks. Last week I have finished the task, and I have showed her my first results yesterday. She was quite excited about them, but they are only preliminary results. I still have to refine them. The task was to use the original program I am working with (prior to applying the changes I have done) to calculate the Lyman alpha line profile for TW Hya, a well known T Tauri star. The Lyman alpha line transition is a transition from the first energetic level to the second energetic level of the hydrogen atom. The photon generated in such a transition is in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, and most of the contribution to the formation of this line comes from the magneto-accretion funnel, and the accretion shock region in the stellar photosphere. Enough to talk about that... I don't think anyone but me (and the people who work with me) is really interested in knowing more about that anyway... (But if anybody has any question about it, I can try to answer... :P)

So, Monday I gathered all my courage and started to figure out the problem in the code again. My mind was much more calm than when I last tried to work with that, some weeks ago. I decided in my mind that my deadline to finish this was this week, and so I opened the code, took a deep breath, and started to debug it, again... Running the program many times, looking the output files, searching and seeking the errors from one point to the other point of the code, until finding the very routine that was the source of the error or errors as I came to discover moments later.

Looking in a more detailed way at the output files, I have found something that I was not expecting. An error in the density values that I have not seen before. The code was having problems in "remembering" where some points really were. If the point is in the magneto-accretion funnel region, the density is calculated using one law, but if it is in the diskwind region, the density was calculated using another law. The problem was that the ONE code line, that was "remembering" the code where each of the points were, was misplaced and then the code was a little confused about the whereabouts of each point, and as such the densities were not correct everywhere. The error was corrected, the program ran, the densities were all corrected this time, BUT the end results were still wrong...

More work... more debugging... insanity taking over my mind again... The Cube... insomnia...

Then today, after a good night of sleep, and after arriving very late at my office, I started the work again. Seeking the errors through the code, from one variable to the previous erroneous one. After tracing back the error through a lot of variables, I have finally discovered that the source of my nightmares was in an interpolation routine. I have changed that routine a couple of months ago, but I have failed to notice a missing point there, and the thing that I have forgotten to change was the source of all my problems. With the previous line of code the program was looking for something like the "j+1" component of a vector-variable that had only a "j" number of components. And so the "j+1" component that was being read somewhere by the program was a random value coming from some unknown and sinister part of the memory (it is usually the next value in the memory block after where the vector-variable was stored). And that random value was affecting all my calculations, spreading the error throughout the other values like an infectious disease. Something that should be positive, had random negative values. Values that should be as low as zero, were acquiring values than a googol (not kidding here, some values were around the order of 1.e+290). And some other strange behavorial problems...

I changed that line and now everything is working properly. The output values for the source function and the average line intensities at each point in the system are being calculated correctly. Next step is to change the program that calculates the line profiles. No more hautings...

At least some good news concerning my work...

The Screen of Insanity

This is the my office's computer screen today. The screen which I spent almost all my time in the office today staring at, the one that is driving me crazy!! Some of the numbers in the foreground window are totally wrong, and they should not be. The reason is still a mystery! By the way, this "small" file in the foreground window has around 3 million lines, 3 million lines full of those weird numbers!! Of course, there is still the program code, that is not in this image...

Click for a larger version

It is The Cube's fault, I know, it is The Cube... or is it the Code?? They are both Evil, I know!!

The Malevolent Code of Cubic Insanity...

This program code I am working with is driving me insane. More insane than I already am. Every time I think it is ready to work, I have a new surprise. Yesterday I solved a problem with some velocity gradients that were not being calculated correctly, because the point in which the gradient was being calculated was too near or exactly at the boundaries of the program domains, and so when the program tried to calculate the gradient one of the points used to do that was outside the domain and the gradient went to zero. And as the program uses the gradient to divide another variable, the division result was going to infinty, and everything was out of control. I solved it, it is working, and then I realized today that there was another set of velocity gradients that were zero and that should not be. The velocity gradients at the crossing points. What are the crossing points? It does not matter... I will only say that they are one of the most important things that were calculated, and without the correct gradients at these points, I can not calculate the line profiles that I want to in a proper way.

My mind is totally out of phase at this moment. Something like a magnetic reconnection is almost happening inside my brain, and maybe a great psionic burst will be produced in the next few hours. I guess after that I can focus my mind again. (Have I already told you that I am getting more insane than I already am?)

My advisor came to my office to talk with me today, and after a while she told me to take a walk and clear my mind. Wow... That never happened before, I guess I should be really stressed if she told me that! Hehehehehe... Just fun...

After that I went to the Michigan Union Building to eat some stuff there, and after eating I went to see The Cube, and wonder about its intricacies. Yeah... I will make a special post about The Cube, but first I need to take a picture of The Cube. But I can tell that I can fell a time-space disturbance around It, and a strong one, and there is something Evil about it... A Malign Time-Space Disturbance can only mean one thing...

One less problem to solve...

Take heed and bear witness to the truths that lie herein, for they are part of my legacy to the world (Not even a little bit pretentious, huh? It was just a small reference from some PC Game of 11 years ago, that I am sure made a lot of people addicted to it, and I even have written something about it a time ago, using the same sentence). And so it came to pass that the problem that was haunting my dreams during these last days was at last solved. The optical depths is, again, at acceptable levels as also is the density of the excited state that was the cause of the problem. The error was not in the code after all, it was in the input file that was read by the code before, and that was used as a configuration file. The gas temperature in this file was a little too high, and it was the cause to the great value for the density of the second excited state in the hydrogen atom, and the causing the great optical depth for the transition from the 2 excited state to the first excited state!

Time to go on, and now patch some other errors... One less..

Optical depths and the atomic excitation levels densities...

After a while I have discovered what was causing that cyclopean optical depth values in my calculations. The problem was the density of the excited atomic state, it was far higher than it should be, and it is still that high. After discovering the source of the problem I have formulated various possibilities for what was the cause of this erroneous value. The possibilities were: an integration error during the calculations of the solid angle covering the star, or the accretion disk or the disk of my system, but after taking a look at these values, I have concluded that those values were fairly good; another possibility were something wrong during the velocity gradient calculations, but again these values had the correct order of magnitude that I should expect. I have not changed anything in the routine used to calculate the densities of each of the atomic excitation levels needed, so it should be correct, after all the program still works as it should work for what was his prior objectives.

After finishing checking those possibilities, I began to wonder where was this error. All the input the input values are what they should be, but the output value is nowhere near what is acceptable. Then I thought about the many iterations needed for this calculation, and I remember that all these values, for every iteration are saved in a general output data, not only the last iteration values. After that I decided to take a look about how these values evolve through each iteration, and I saw it... The problem is in the first value for density that was calculated, even before any kind of solid angle integration or even after using the routine that calculates the excitation equilibrium states for the system. I was looking for the problem in the wrong place, now I have to start looking in the right place.

And so, here I go again... I expect that this time I can find the problem.