Petascale Cosmology with Gadget: Modeling the formation of the First Quasars with Blue Waters

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This award to Carmegie Mellon University facilitates cosmology research using the large new computational resource named Blue Waters recently deployed and operated by the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. It provides travel funds to support technical coordination between the principal investigators and the Blue Waters project team. The research team will conduct hydrodynamic simulations of bright qasar formations which evolved from the first supermassive black holes in the universe. The simulations will use full mass and spatial resolution throughout the entire massive cosmological volume. The initial simulation will evolve to redshift z= 4, while the second subsequent smaller simulation will evolve to reshift z = 0. These are expected to be the highest resolution SPH (Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics) simulations performed at low redshift. These simulations represent qualitative advances both in understanding of fundamental cosmology questions and efficient algorithmic approaches at the frontiers of large scale computation.The project team includes early career researchers. Both the resulting data and the software used to perform these high resolution simulations will be publically available allowing related subsequent high resolution studies by other researchers. The software is incorporated into the existing and already highly used publicly available GADGET application. Data products in the form of visualizations and other materials will be incorporated into expansive and ongoing outreach programs at undergraduate and high school levels, advancing understanding and interest in both large scale computational research and astronomy.