Physical Society Colloquium

Probing the Hubble Sequence through Numerical Simulations

Paul Torrey

MIT

In astrophysics, numerical simulations are among the most powerful tools available to probe the non-linear regime of cosmic structure formation. They also provide one of the most powerful test-beds for understanding the impact that hydrodynamics and physical feedback processes have on the evolution of galaxies. In my talk, I will present galaxy formation simulations that couple a novel moving mesh hydrodynamical approach with explicit baryon feedback prescriptions. This results in galaxy formation models that reproduce a wide range of observable constrains including the galaxy stellar mass function, cosmic star formation rate, and galaxy morphological diversity. I will discuss the numerical methods that we've employed, how they vary from traditional methods, why this matters for our understanding of galaxy formation, and what we have learned from these large numerical experiments.