Evolution of the Small Galaxy Population From High Redshift to the Present

该奖项促进了科学研究使用大型新的计算资源命名为蓝色沃茨计划部署在伊利诺伊大学在2012年。它提供差旅费，以支持主要调查人员、蓝色沃茨项目小组和供应商技术小组之间的技术协调。冷暗物质（CDM）结构形成的范例在很大范围的尺度上取得了许多成功：从视界尺度上的宇宙微波背景波动到单个星系的形成和聚集。然而，在星系光度函数的低端，CDM理论和观测之间的一致性有些不一致。特别是，存在无核小星系并不是CDM的自然预测。然而，在这些尺度上，气体冷却、星星形成和反馈的重子物理学可以显著影响星系的整体质量。此外，精确地模拟星星的形成过程需要空间分辨率为100秒差距或更少，质量分辨率小于10000太阳质量，以解决分子星星形成区域的星际介质。 计划中的模拟将使用Blue沃茨千万亿次系统模拟空间望远镜的观测体积，这些体积与从高红移到现在的小星系相一致，具有足够的分辨率，以便对适合这些观测的光度函数、星星形成率和形态进行可靠的预测。 项目团队成功地吸引了不同的学生群体。 此外，模拟将在公共宣传论坛以及本科课程的教学中以视觉方式呈现，增加公众对星系和星星形成的理解，这对我们了解整个宇宙至关重要。

This award facilitates scientific research using the large new computational resource named Blue Waters scheduled to be deployed at the University of Illinois in 2012. It provides travel funds to support technical coordination between the principal investigators, the Blue Waters project team and vendor technical team.The Cold Dark Matter (CDM) paradigm for structure formation has had many successes over a large range of scales: from Cosmic Microwave Background fluctuations on the scale of the horizon to the formation and clustering of individual galaxies. However, at the low end of the galaxy luminosity function, the agreement between the CDM theory and observations is somewhat at odds. In particular, the existence of bulgeless, cored small galaxies is not a natural prediction of CDM. However, these are the scales where the baryonic physics of gas cooling, star formation and feedback can significantly impact the overall mass of the galaxy. Furthermore, accurately modeling the star formation process requires spatial resolution of order 100 parsecs or less and mass resolutions of less than 10000 solar masses in order to resolve the molecular star forming regions of the interstellar medium. The planned simulations will use the Blue Waters petascale system to model space telescope survey volumes consistent with addresssing small galaxies from high redshift to the present with sufficient resolution to make robust predictions of the luminosity function, star formation rate and morphologies appropriate for these surveys.Students will be involved in these computational advances in cosmology research. The project team is successful in attracting a diverse population of students. Morever, the simulations will be represented visually in public outreach forums as well as in instruction in undergraduate courses, increasing public understanding of galaxy and star formation which is fundamental to our knowledge of the Universe as a whole.