Numerical Simulations Unravel the Cosmic Web

Abstract

The universe is permeated by a network of filaments, sheets, and knots collectively forming a "cosmic web.'' The discovery of the cosmic web, especially through its signature of absorption of light from distant sources by neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium, exemplifies the interplay between theory and experiment that drives science, and is one of the great examples in which numerical simulations have played a key and decisive role. We recount the milestones in our understanding of cosmic structure, summarize its impact on astronomy, cosmology, and physics, and look ahead by outlining the challenges faced as we prepare to probe the cosmic web at new wavelengths.

10 pages, 2 figures. Appeared as a solicited Perspective article in the January 4, 2008 special issue of Science on the cosmic web

References in corpus (13)

• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
• How Filaments are Woven into the Cosmic Web
• Where are the Baryons?
• Baryons in the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium
• The Lyman Alpha Forest in the Spectra of QSOs
• The Lyman-alpha Forest in the Cold Dark Matter Model
• Recovery of the Power Spectrum of Mass Fluctuations from Observations of the Lyman-alpha Forest
• The Opacity of the Lyman Alpha Forest and Implications for Omega_{baryon} and the Ionizing Background
• The Linear Theory Power Spectrum from the Lyman-alpha Forest in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The morphology of HII regions during reionization
• Can sterile neutrinos be the dark matter?
• Simulations and Analytic Calculations of Bubble Growth During Hydrogen Reionization
• Can sterile neutrinos be ruled out as warm dark matter candidates?

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Fractal Dimension as a measure of the scale of Homogeneity
• A consistent and robust measurement of the thermal state of the IGM at $2\le z\le 4$ from a large sample of Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra: Evidence for late and rapid HeII reionization
• Intergalactic Lyman continuum photon budget in the past 5 billion years
• Effect of non-equilibrium ionization on derived physical conditions of the high-$z$ intergalactic medium
• The morphology of star-forming gas and its alignment with galaxies and dark matter haloes in the EAGLE simulations
• Modeling the Alignment Profile of Satellite Galaxies in Clusters
• A Scaling Relation of the Evolving Tidal Fields in a LCDM Cosmology
• Shape, alignment, and mass distribution of baryonic and dark-matter halos in one EAGLE simulation