A Holistic Approach to Modeling Galaxy Groups and Clusters

星系群和星系团建模的整体方法

• 批准号: 197288-2013
• 负责人: Babul, Arif
• 金额: $ 2.99万
• 依托单位: University of Victoria
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2013-01-01 至 2014-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=523287
• 关键词: Holistic; Approach; Modeling; Galaxy; Groups

Galaxy groups and clusters are remarkable systems. With masses ranging from an equivalent of 10,000 billion suns to a mind-boggling million billion suns, these systems are the largest, most massive gravitationally bound objects in the Universe. They stand out as rich concentrations of bright galaxies and are among the most luminous X-ray sources in the universe. As a result, they are easy to identify out to vast distances. They are also the youngest of the cosmic structures to have formed and as such, still bear the imprints of the conditions that led to their formation. Because of all these factors, the most massive of these systems have been identified as potentially powerful probes of the geometry and the expansion of the universe. However, the use of clusters as cosmological probes depends critically on how well we understand why groups and clusters in the local universe look the way they do, and what these systems would have looked like at an earlier epoch. My research focuses on these two issues. I am developing realistic predictive models to describe, in detail, how groups and clusters formed and how they have changed over time. The modeling involves using state-of-the-art computer simulations, carried out on powerful supercomputers, to replicate "virtually" the universe's 13.7 billion year history and identify the conditions that led to the systems we observe today. Over the course of time, groups and clusters are influenced by an incredibly complex web of processes all influencing one another, processes such as those that govern the birth, life and death of stars, those that shape the ebb and flow of convergent dark matter flows that give rise to increasingly larger cosmic structures with time, and those that govern the response of supermassive black holes as they capture and draw in gas from their surroundings. Realistic numerical simulations are the only way of unraveling this web and making sense of how the observed properties of galaxy groups and clusters emerged.

星系群和星系团是非凡的系统。这些系统的质量范围从相当于 10 万亿个太阳到令人难以置信的 100 亿个太阳，是宇宙中最大、质量最大的引力束缚物体。它们因富含明亮星系而引人注目，并且是宇宙中最明亮的 X 射线源之一。 因此，它们很容易在很远的距离外被识别出来。它们也是已形成的最年轻的宇宙结构，因此仍然带有导致其形成的条件的印记。 由于所有这些因素，这些系统中最大的一个被认为是几何和宇宙膨胀的潜在强大探测器。 然而，使用星团作为宇宙学探测器关键取决于我们对为什么本地宇宙中的群体和星团看起来像它们的样子的理解程度，以及这些系统在早期时代的样子。 我的研究主要集中在这两个问题上。 我正在开发现实的预测模型来详细描述群体和集群如何形成以及它们如何随着时间的推移而变化。 该建模涉及使用在强大的超级计算机上进行的最先进的计算机模拟，“虚拟”复制宇宙 137 亿年的历史，并确定导致我们今天观察到的系统的条件。随着时间的推移，群体和星团受到极其复杂的过程网络的影响，这些过程相互影响，例如那些控制恒星诞生、生命和死亡的过程，那些塑造会聚暗物质流潮起潮落的过程，随着时间的推移产生越来越大的宇宙结构，以及那些控制超大质量黑洞从周围捕获和吸入气体时的反应的过程。 现实的数值模拟是解开这个网络并理解观测到的星系群和星系团特性如何出现的唯一方法。