How to simulate the Universe in a Computer
Abstract
In this contribution a broad overview of the methodologies of cosmological N-body simulations and a short introduction explaining the general idea behind such simulations is presented. After explaining how to set up the initial conditions using a set of N particles two (diverse) techniques are presented for evolving these particles forward in time under the influence of their self-gravity. One technique (tree codes) is solely based upon a sophistication of the direct particle-particle summation whereas the other method relies on the continuous (de-)construction of arbitrarily shaped grids and is realized in adaptive mesh refinement codes.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0412565,
title = {How to simulate the Universe in a Computer},
author = {Alexander Knebe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0412565},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PASA (refereed proceedings contribution for the meeting "Gravity 2004" held in Sydney, April 15-16, 2004)