Simulations of Disk Galaxy Formation in their Cosmological Context

Together with the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the present Universe and measurements of large-scale structure at low redshift, observations of the cosmic microwave background have established a standard paradigm in which all cosmic structure grew from small fluctuations generated at very early times in a flat universe which today consists of 72% dark energy, 23.5% dark matter and 4.5% ordinary baryons. The CMB sky provides us with a direct image of this universe when it was 400,000 years old and very nearly uniform. The galaxy formation problem is then to understand how observed galaxies with all their regularity and diversity arose from these very simple initial conditions. Although gravity is the prime driver, many physical processes appear to play an important role in this transformation, and direct numerical simulation has become the principal tool for detailed investigation of the complex and strongly nonlinear interactions between them.