Cosmological N-body simulations including radiation perturbations

TYPEAstrophysics Seminar
Speaker:Cornelius Rampf
Affiliation:Technion
Date:01.02.2017
Time:14:30 - 15:30
Location:Lidow 620
Abstract:Cosmological N-body simulations are the standard tool used to study the formation of large-scale structure in our Universe. Such simulations solve for the gravitational dynamics of matter within the Newtonian approximation, thus discarding general relativistic effects such as the coupling between matter and radiation (= photons and neutrinos). Such interactions, however, must be taken into account when comparing simulations to the next generation of large-scale structure data from surveys such as Euclid and SKA. In this talk I show how to incorporate such interactions into cosmological simulations. I present a modification to a Newtonian N-body solver that includes radiation perturbations to the leading order in cosmological perturbation theory, whilst evolving the matter in full non-linearity. These simulations come naturally with a relativistic space-time and thus make it possible to analyse the N-body output on the past light-cone.