Cosmological simulations

Computer simulations are a powerful and important tool for understanding the cosmos. A detailed simulation can provide a means for understanding processes which occur on such long time scales (millions or even billions of years) that it is not possible to to observe these events in the universe. Cosmological simulations are used to study galaxy collisions and also the formation of large scale structure in the universe. The introductory lesson below assumes no prior background in astronomy. The advanced lesson requires experience in building computer programs from source code.

Simulation of the cosmological formation of a cluster of galaxies in an expanding universe.

Introduction

Simulation of structure formation in a ΛCDM universe

• Galaxy Crash

Advanced

• Installing and Running Gadget-2

• Running your first SPH simulation

• Starscream: A GPL code for galactic astronomy - Used to generate initial conditions to use with GADGET for galaxy collision simulations.

• GADGET-2: A code for cosmological simulations of structure formation - Simulation code for gallaxy collisions or for early structure formation in the universe.

• G2X: GADGET2 Optimization Using the CUDA Architecture - Version of GADGET-2 for w:GPU hardware.

• IFrIT: A general purpose visualization software - For viewing the results of simulations.

See also

• Computer model
• w:GADGET
• w:Interacting galaxy
• w:Structure formation