Interfacing supercomputer simulations of galaxy formation with precision cosmology
Institutskolloquium
- Datum: 28.03.2025
- Uhrzeit: 10:30 - 12:00
- Vortragender: Prof. Volker Springel
- Prof. Volker Springel received his PhD in Astrophysics from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Munich in 1999. He went on to be a Post-doc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and subsequently at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, where he became a tenured research group leader in 2005. He was appointed Prof. of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Heidelberg in 2010, where her also became group leader for Theoretical Astrophysics at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies and member of the Interdisciplinary Center of Scientific Computing in Heidelberg. Since 2017 Prof. Springel is Director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, and since 2019 he is Honorary Professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. He also serves as Vice President of the German Astronomical Society, as Member of the Cosmological Simulation Working Group (CSWG) of the EUCLID satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) and as member of the Research Board of the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence. From 2017-2023 he was a member of the scientific advisory board of the Gauß-Center for Supercomputing (GCS) and from 2019-2022 he was member of the Steering Committee of the Max-Planck Princeton Center for Plasmaphysics. in 2016 Prof. Springel was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and in 2020 he became an International Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2021 he won the Leibniz Award of the DFG.
- Ort: IPP Garching
- Raum: Arnulf-Schlüter Lecture Hall in Building D2 and Zoom
- Gastgeber: IPP
- Kontakt: stefan.possanner@ipp.mpg.de
Numerical calculations of cosmic structure formation have become a powerful tool in astrophysics. Starting right after the Big Bang, they are not only able to accurately predict the dark matter backbone of the cosmic web far into the non-linear regime, but are also capable of following baryonic physics with rapidly improving fidelity. In my talk, I will review the methodology and selected results of recent structure formation simulations that follow large parts of the observable universe. I will discuss some of the primary challenges in modelling strong, scale-dependent feedback processes that regulate star formation in galaxies, and highlight the important role played by supermassive black holes in galaxy formation. I will also discuss extremely large simulations and describe how they help to make reliable predictions for the impact of baryons and massive neutrinos on cosmological observables, effects that need to be understood to make full use of upcoming new survey data. The simulation results also shed light on cosmic reionization and magnetic field amplification during non-linear structure formation. Finally, I will highlight some of the methodological and technical challenges involved in obtaining future multi-physics, multi-scale simulations that aim for more accurate predictions.