Probing New Physics in Galaxy Formation at Ultra-High Resolution

一系列令人兴奋的新观测项目有望彻底改变我们对星系和恒星形成的理解：从LSST和GAIA以改变游戏规则的细节测量银河系恒星群，到詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜在宇宙第一缕曙光期间探测星系，而哈勃望远镜发现了星系周围介质中长期失踪的质量。该项目打算对蓝色水域进行大规模的宇宙流体动力学模拟，以做出详细的预测，并利用这些变革性的观测结果。这些模拟将支持现实环境中的反馈(FIRE)项目，这是一个由13个机构的理论家组成的网络，其中包括几名美国国家科学基金会博士后和研究生研究员：这一合作开发了新的、完全宇宙学的星系形成模拟，明确遵循不同的物理学范围。该项目将通过在Blue Waters上以前所未有的分辨率和物理学进行宇宙学模拟，对星系形成进行新的研究。该项目运行了一套大型宇宙学模拟，目标是从银河系最微弱的矮星到银河系的星系，达到利用下一代观测所需的超高分辨率和真实感。Blue Waters的千万亿级资源将使该项目能够分解每个星系的大约10亿个粒子，并在实时宇宙学环境中自我一致地跟踪它们的整个历史。这些模拟将以前所未有的真实感模拟星系形成的物理模型，不仅独特地纳入了所有重要的恒星反馈机制(辐射压力、光加热、恒星风、超新星)，而且还包括磁场、物理(各向异性)布拉金斯基传导和粘性、被动标量(金属)扩散和显式的多波长辐射流体力学。这代表了NSF支持的几年工作的高潮，并将是使火灾项目的科学得以实现的关键。该项目将支持一个涉及高中生和教师、本科生以及一个使用这些模拟的大型科学团队的外展部分。这些模拟将被用来专门为下一代天文台做出预测，包括(但不限于)：JWST、LSST、GAIA和HST，以检验星系和恒星形成的理论，约束宇宙中重元素的起源，早期宇宙的再电离历史，圆周和星系间介质中基本等离子体物理的影响，以及冷暗物质的性质。

A wealth of exciting new observational projects promise to revolutionize our understanding of galaxy and star formation: from the LSST and Gaia measuring Milky Way stellar populations in game-changing detail, to the James Webb Space Telescope probing galaxies during cosmic "first light", while the Hubble telescope identifies the long-"missing" mass in the medium around galaxies. This project intends to run large-scale cosmological hydrodynamic simulations on Blue Waters to make detailed predictions and leverage these transformative observations. The simulations will support the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) project, a network of theorists at 13 institutions, including several NSF postdoctoral and graduate student fellows: this collaboration has developed new, fully-cosmological simulations of galaxy formation that explicitly follow a diverse range of physics. This project will carry out novel studies of galaxy formation by running cosmological simulations on Blue Waters with unprecedented resolution and physics. The project run a large suite of cosmological simulations, targeting galaxies from the faintest dwarfs through the Milky Way, at the ultra-high resolution and realism required to leverage the next-generation of observations. The petascale resources of Blue Waters will allow the project to resolve each galaxy with ~1 billion particles and follow them self-consistently over their entire history in live cosmological settings. These simulations will model the physics of galaxy formation with unprecedented realism, uniquely incorporating not only all of the important stellar feedback mechanisms (radiation pressure, photo-heating, stellar winds, supernovae), but also magnetic fields, physical (anisotropic) Braginskii conduction and viscosity, passive scalar (metal) diffusion, and explicit, multi-wavelength radiation hydrodynamics. This represents the culmination of several years of work supported by NSF, and will be critical to enable the science of the FIRE project. The project will support an outreach component involving high school students and teachers, and undergraduate students, as well as a large science team using these simulations. The simulations will be used to make predictions specifically for next-generation observatories including (but not limited to): JWST, LSST, Gaia, and HST, in order to test theories of galaxy and star formation, constrain the origin of the heavy elements in the Universe, the re-ionization history of the early Universe, the effects of fundamental plasma physics in the circum and inter-galactic medium, and the nature of cold dark matter.