Modeling the Cosmic Melting Pots in the Outskirts of Galaxies and Galaxy Clusters

了解星系和星系团的成长是我们对宇宙的认识中最重要的突出问题之一。在最大的尺度上，宇宙具有丝状结构，气体和暗物质交织在一系列的线中。气体沿着这个“宇宙网”逐渐流动和积聚，最终导致了原星系和原星系团的形成。尽管如此，星系及其星团最终形成的确切方式仍然知之甚少。这项研究使我们迈出了突破性的一步，将我们对星系外围气体的认识与星系团中的认识联系起来并加以综合。该计划将通过使用一套高分辨率的宇宙学模拟来解决一些关于气体结构和流动的关键问题。PI将主要使用自适应细化树（ART）代码，但也会将这些模拟结果与星团和环星系介质的详细多波长观测结果进行比较。这项工作将为星系和星系团中的重子预算、星系反馈对扩展晕气体的影响、星系演化的环境依赖性以及星系中恒星形成的猝灭提供新的见解。PI还将与耶鲁大学的科学、技术和研究学者（STARS）项目合作，开发一门实用的计算天体物理学课程，以扩大少数民族对计算科学的参与。此外，模拟的数据产品将通过可公开访问的在线数据库提供。

Understanding the growth of galaxies and galaxy clusters is one of the most significant outstanding problems in our knowledge of the universe. On the largest scales, the universe has a filamentary structure, with gas and dark matter interweaving in a series of threads. The gradual flow and build-up of gas along this "cosmic web" ultimately leads to the formation of protogalaxies and protoclusters. Despite this, the precise manner in which galaxies and their clusters eventually form remains poorly understood. A breakthrough step, enabled by this research, is to connect and synthesize our knowledge of the gas in the outskirts of galaxies with that in galaxy clusters.This program will address a number of critical questions regarding the structure and flow of gas by using a suite of high-resolution cosmological simulations. The PI will principally use the Adaptive Refinement Tree (ART) code, but will also compare the results of these simulations with detailed multi-wavelength observations of clusters and the circumgalactic medium. The work will lead to new insights into the baryon budgets in galaxies and clusters, the impact of galactic feedback on extended halo gas, the environmental dependence of galaxy evolution, and the quenching of star formation in galaxies. The PI will also develop a hands-on computational astrophysics curriculum to expand minority involvement in computational science, in collaboration with the Science, Technology, and Research Scholars (STARS) program at Yale University. Furthermore, the data products of the simulations will be made available via online publicly-accessible databases.