Related papers: A cosmological context for compact massive galaxie…
These lectures cover various aspects of the statistical description of cosmological density fields. Observationally, this consists of the point process defined by galaxies, and the challenge is to relate this to the continuous density field…
Clusters of galaxies are self-gravitating systems of mass ~10^14-10^15 Msun. They consist of dark matter (~80 %), hot diffuse intracluster plasma (< 20 %) and a small fraction of stars, dust, and cold gas, mostly locked in galaxies. In most…
We use large cosmological N-body simulations to study the subhalo population in galaxy group sized halos. In particular, we look for fossil group candidates with typical masses ~10-25% of Virgo cluster but with an order of magnitude less…
We present an end-to-end description of the formation process of globular clusters (GCs) which combines a treatment for their formation and dynamical evolution within galaxy haloes with a state-of-the-art semi-analytic simulation of galaxy…
The mass function of galaxies and clusters of galaxies can be derived observationally based on different types of observations. In this study we test if these observations can be combined to a consistent picture which is also in accord with…
The evolution of present-day fossil galaxy groups is studied in the Millennium Simulation. Using the corresponding Millennium gas simulation and semi-analytic galaxy catalogues, we select fossil groups at redshift zero according to the…
Clusters of galaxies, being dark matter dominated, have long been and still are the ideal cosmological targets to study the nature of dark matter. Constraints on the nature of dark matter comes in particular from the observational…
In a series of three papers, we introduced a novel cluster formation model that describes the formation, growth, and disruption of star clusters in high-resolution cosmological simulations. We tested this model on a Milky Way-sized galaxy…
The formation of compact high-redshift star-forming clumps, the physical processes driving their evolution and their potential connection to present-day Globular Clusters are key open questions in galaxy formation. In this work, we aim to…
Surveys of galaxy clusters provide a promising method of testing models of structure formation in the universe. Within the context of our standard structure formation scenario, surveys provide measurements of the geometry of the universe…
In the standard theory of growth of the nonbaryonic dark matter, cosmic structures form hierarchically and self-similarly from smaller clumps. The assembly merger tree goes from the linear perturbations in the early universe to highly non…
The standard cosmological model, now strongly constrained by direct observation at early epochs, is very successful in describing the structure of the evolved universe on large and intermediate scales. Unfortunately, serious contradictions…
I review the standard paradigm for understanding the formation and evolution of cosmic structure, based on the gravitational instability of dark matter, but many variations on this basic theme are viable. Despite the great progress that has…
We have performed N-body simulations of poor clusters with enough particles to resolve the individual galaxies. The main cases of initial conditions are: (i) 50 equal mass galaxies; (ii) 60 galaxies with masses drawn from a Schechter…
Systematic surveys of massive clumps have been carried out to study the conditions leading to the formation of massive stars. These clumps are typically at large distances and unresolved, so their physical properties cannot be reliably…
We study the formation and the evolution of galaxy groups in a critical universe, showing the importance of secondary infall for their dynamical evolution. Merging is only slightly accelerated if galaxies have massive halos, because the…
The properties of substructure in galaxy clusters, exquisitely probed by gravitational lensing, offer a stringent test of dark matter (DM) models. Combining strong- and weak-lensing data for massive clusters, we map their total mass --…
We investigate the formation of clusters of galaxies in an expanding universe using a new code that regrids at a region of high density. In particular we investigate two models for the initial conditions, both with the standard CDM power…
Cosmological simulations are crucial tools in studying the Universe, but they typically do not directly match real observed structures. Constrained cosmological simulations, on the other hand, are designed to match the observed distribution…
Giant clumps are a characteristic feature of observed high-redshift disk galaxies. We propose that these kpc-sized clumps have a complex substructure and are the result of many smaller clumps self-organizing themselves into clump clusters…