A short introduction to numerical methods used in cosmological N-body simulations
Abstract
We give a short introduction to modern numerical methods commonly used in cosmological N-body simulations. First, we present some simple considerations based on linear perturbation theory which indicate the necessity for N-body simulations. Then, based on a working example of the publicly available gadget-2 code, we describe particle mesh and Barnes-Hut oct-tree methods used in numerical gravity N-body solvers. We also briefly discuss methods used in an elementary hydrodynamic implementation used for baryonic gas. Next, we give a very basic description of time integration of equations of motion commonly used in N-body codes. Finally we describe the Zeldovitch approximation as an example method for generating initial conditions for computer simulations.
- Publication:
-
Introduction to Cosmology
- Pub Date:
- December 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015pta..conf...58H