RSAA Colloquia / Seminars / Feast-of-Facts: Friday, 18 August 2017, 14:30-14:50; Duffield Lecture Theatre


Luke Barnes

"How cosmological simulations inform observational surveys and fundamental cosmology"

I will show two important ways in which cosmological simulations of galaxy formation can be used to inform astronomy and cosmology. Firstly, as part of the SAMI project, I have used a synthetic pipeline to produce mock SAMI datacubes of galaxies in simulations. In particular, I will show how synthetic galaxies have been "observed" with proposed designs for the Hector instrument. Secondly, cosmological simulations can be used to investigate early-universe cosmological theories. Theories of cosmological inflation often predict that cosmic conditions will vary from place to place in the universe as a whole. In particular, the value of the cosmological constant can plausibly explained by a combination of environmental variation and its effect on galaxy formation. In such models, it is crucial that we understand how quickly and efficiently the onset of accelerating expansion shuts down accretion of matter into dark matter haloes and galaxies. I will show simulations, based on the cosmological galaxy formation code of the Eagle collaboration that investigates this effect.