In physics and astronomy, an N-body simulation is a simulation of a dynamical system of particles, usually under the influence of physical forces, such as gravity (see n-body problem for other applications). N-body simulations are widely used tools in astrophysics, from investigating the dynamics of few-body systems like the Earth-Moon-Sun system to understanding the evolution of the large-scale structure of the universe. In physical cosmology, N-body simulations are used to study processes of non-linear structure formation such as galaxy filaments and galaxy halos from the influence of dark matter. Direct N-body simulations are used to study the dynamical evolution of star clusters.
The 'particles' treated by the simulation may or may not correspond to physical objects which are particulate in nature. For example, an N-body simulation of a star cluster might have a particle per star, so each particle has some physical significance. On the other hand, a simulation of a gas cloud cannot afford to have a particle for each atom or molecule of gas as this would require on the order of e23 particles for each mole of material (see Avogadro constant), so a single 'particle' would represent some much larger quantity of gas (often implemented using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics). This quantity need not have any physical significance, but must be chosen as a compromise between accuracy and manageable computer requirements.
Dark matter plays an important role in the formation of galaxies. The time evolution of the density f (in phase space) of dark matter particles, can be described by the collisionless Boltzmann equation
In the equation, is the velocity, and Φ is the gravitational potential given by Poisson's Equation. These two coupled equations are solved in an expanding background Universe, which is governed by the Friedmann equations, after determining the initial conditions of dark matter particles. The conventional method employed for initializing positions and velocities of dark matter particles involves moving particles within a uniform Cartesian lattice or a glass-like particle configuration.
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Ce cours décrit les principaux concepts physiques utilisés en astrophysique. Il est proposé à l'EPFL aux étudiants de 2eme année de Bachelor en physique.
Ce cours décrit les principaux concepts physiques utilisés en astrophysique. Il est proposé à l'EPFL aux étudiants de 2eme année de Bachelor en physique.
Learn about the physical phenomena at play in astronomical objects and link theoretical predictions to observations.
The chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology. Research published in 2015 estimates the earliest stages of the universe's existence as taking place 13.8 billion years ago, with an uncertainty of around 21 million years at the 68% confidence level. For the purposes of this summary, it is convenient to divide the chronology of the universe since it originated, into five parts.
The Illustris project is an ongoing series of astrophysical simulations run by an international collaboration of scientists. The aim was to study the processes of galaxy formation and evolution in the universe with a comprehensive physical model. Early results were described in a number of publications following widespread press coverage. The project publicly released all data produced by the simulations in April, 2015. Key developers of the Illustris simulation have been Volker Springel (Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik) and Mark Vogelsberger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
According to modern models of physical cosmology, a dark matter halo is a basic unit of cosmological structure. It is a hypothetical region that has decoupled from cosmic expansion and contains gravitationally bound matter. A single dark matter halo may contain multiple virialized clumps of dark matter bound together by gravity, known as subhalos. Modern cosmological models, such as ΛCDM, propose that dark matter halos and subhalos may contain galaxies.
Learn the concepts, tools and API's that are needed to debug, test, optimize and parallelize a scientific application on a cluster from an existing code or from scratch. Both OpenMP (shared memory) an
Galaxy formation & evolution is about studying how galaxies in our Universe come into existence, how they evolve and what shapes their properties. This course describes the observational facts of gala
The course will cover some fundamentals of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) theory with hands-on sessions to learn the basics of MHD simulations using the open-source Pencil Code (http://pencil-code.nordita
Explores quantum fluctuations, inflation prediction, cosmological parameters, and structure formation in the universe, including dark matter instabilities and N-body simulations.
We investigate the fueling mechanisms of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) by analyzing 10 zoom-in cosmological simulations of massive galaxies, with stellar masses 1011-12 M circle dot and SMBH masses 108.9-9.7 M circle dot at z = 0, featuring various majo ...
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Terrestrial particle accelerators collide charged particles, then watch the trajectory of outgoing debris - but they cannot manipulate dark matter. Fortunately, dark matter is the main component of galaxy clusters, which are continuously pulled together by ...
Numerical simulations have become one of the key tools used by theorists in all the fields of astrophysics and cosmology. The development of modern tools that target the largest existing computing systems and exploit state-of-the-art numerical methods and ...