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Session 26 -- The Dynamics of Large Scale Structure

Oral presentation, Tuesday, June 13, 1995, 8:30am - 12:30pm

[26.02] Gravitational Simulations of Cosmic Structure Formation

Theories of cosmic structure formation cannot be tested experimentally; they must be simulated instead. Solving this problem requires specifying initial conditions in the early universe, evolving them linearly for about 100 million years, and then following nonlinear gravitational instability and more complicated physics for 15 or so billion years. This talk will briefly summarize the state-of-the-art in large N-body simulation techniques for nonlinear gravitational evolution. Examples will be presented of how high-resolution simulations can be used to advance theoretical understanding of nonlinear gravitational instability, and how they can be used to reject models such as standard cold dark matter, while lending tentative support to others.

Tuesday program listing