6,380 research outputs found
The Rockstar Phase-Space Temporal Halo Finder and the Velocity Offsets of Cluster Cores
We present a new algorithm for identifying dark matter halos, substructure,
and tidal features. The approach is based on adaptive hierarchical refinement
of friends-of-friends groups in six phase-space dimensions and one time
dimension, which allows for robust (grid-independent, shape-independent, and
noise-resilient) tracking of substructure; as such, it is named Rockstar
(Robust Overdensity Calculation using K-Space Topologically Adaptive
Refinement). Our method is massively parallel (up to 10^5 CPUs) and runs on the
largest current simulations (>10^10 particles) with high efficiency (10 CPU
hours and 60 gigabytes of memory required per billion particles analyzed). A
previous paper (Knebe et al 2011) has shown Rockstar to have class-leading
recovery of halo properties; we expand on these comparisons with more tests and
higher-resolution simulations. We show a significant improvement in
substructure recovery as compared to several other halo finders and discuss the
theoretical and practical limits of simulations in this regard. Finally, we
present results which demonstrate conclusively that dark matter halo cores are
not at rest relative to the halo bulk or satellite average velocities and have
coherent velocity offsets across a wide range of halo masses and redshifts. For
massive clusters, these offsets can be up to 350 km/s at z=0 and even higher at
high redshifts. Our implementation is publicly available at
http://code.google.com/p/rockstar .Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures. Minor revisions to match accepted versio
Streams Going Notts: The tidal debris finder comparison project
While various codes exist to systematically and robustly find haloes and
subhaloes in cosmological simulations (Knebe et al., 2011, Onions et al.,
2012), this is the first work to introduce and rigorously test codes that find
tidal debris (streams and other unbound substructure) in fully cosmological
simulations of structure formation. We use one tracking and three non-tracking
codes to identify substructure (bound and unbound) in a Milky Way type
simulation from the Aquarius suite (Springel et al., 2008) and post-process
their output with a common pipeline to determine the properties of these
substructures in a uniform way. By using output from a fully cosmological
simulation, we also take a step beyond previous studies of tidal debris that
have used simple toy models. We find that both tracking and non-tracking codes
agree well on the identification of subhaloes and more importantly, the {\em
unbound tidal features} associated with them. The distributions of basic
properties of the total substructure distribution (mass, velocity dispersion,
position) are recovered with a scatter of . Using the tracking code as
our reference, we show that the non-tracking codes identify complex tidal
debris with purities of . Analysing the results of the substructure
finders, we find that the general distribution of {\em substructures} differ
significantly from the distribution of bound {\em subhaloes}. Most importantly,
both bound and unbound {\em substructures} together constitute of the
host halo mass, which is a factor of higher than the fraction in
self-bound {\em subhaloes}. However, this result is restricted by the remaining
challenge to cleanly define when an unbound structure has become part of the
host halo. Nevertheless, the more general substructure distribution provides a
more complete picture of a halo's accretion history.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
The Abacus Cosmos: A Suite of Cosmological N-body Simulations
We present a public data release of halo catalogs from a suite of 125
cosmological -body simulations from the Abacus project. The simulations span
40 CDM cosmologies centered on the Planck 2015 cosmology at two mass
resolutions, and , in and
boxes, respectively. The boxes are phase-matched to
suppress sample variance and isolate cosmology dependence. Additional volume is
available via 16 boxes of fixed cosmology and varied phase; a few boxes of
single-parameter excursions from Planck 2015 are also provided. Catalogs
spanning to are available for friends-of-friends and Rockstar
halo finders and include particle subsamples. All data products are available
at https://lgarrison.github.io/AbacusCosmosComment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables. Additional figures added for mass
resolution convergence tests, and additional redshifts added for existing
tests. Matches ApJS accepted versio
Galaxies going MAD: The Galaxy-Finder Comparison Project
With the ever increasing size and complexity of fully self-consistent
simulations of galaxy formation within the framework of the cosmic web, the
demands upon object finders for these simulations has simultaneously grown. To
this extent we initiated the Halo Finder Comparison Project that gathered
together all the experts in the field and has so far led to two comparison
papers, one for dark matter field haloes (Knebe et al. 2011), and one for dark
matter subhaloes (Onions et al. 2012). However, as state-of-the-art simulation
codes are perfectly capable of not only following the formation and evolution
of dark matter but also account for baryonic physics (e.g. hydrodynamics, star
formation, feedback) object finders should also be capable of taking these
additional processes into consideration. Here we report on a comparison of
codes as applied to the Constrained Local UniversE Simulation (CLUES) of the
formation of the Local Group which incorporates much of the physics relevant
for galaxy formation. We compare both the properties of the three main galaxies
in the simulation (representing the MW, M31, and M33) as well as their
satellite populations for a variety of halo finders ranging from phase-space to
velocity-space to spherical overdensity based codes, including also a mere
baryonic object finder. We obtain agreement amongst codes comparable to (if not
better than) our previous comparisons, at least for the total, dark, and
stellar components of the objects. However, the diffuse gas content of the
haloes shows great disparity, especially for low-mass satellite galaxies. This
is primarily due to differences in the treatment of the thermal energy during
the unbinding procedure. We acknowledge that the handling of gas in halo
finders is something that needs to be dealt with carefully, and the precise
treatment may depend sensitively upon the scientific problem being studied.Comment: 14 interesting pages, 17 beautiful figures, and 2 informative tables
accepted for publication in MNRAS (matches published version
Sugary Drink FACTS 2014: Some Progress but Much Room for Improvement in Marketing to Youth
This report updates a 2011 report on the same topic. Using the same methods as the last report, researchers examined changes in the nutritional content of sugar-sweetened drinks including sodas, fruit drinks, flavored waters, sports drinks, iced teas, as well as zero-calorie energy drinks and shots. They also analyzed marketing tactics for 23 companies that advertised these products, including amount spent to advertise in all media; child and teen exposure to advertising and brand appearances on TV and visits to beverage company websites, including differences for black and Hispanic youth; advertising on websites popular with children and teens; and marketing in newer media like mobile apps and social media. Researchers also examined changes in advertising of diet beverages, 100% juice, and water
The Caterpillar Project: A Large Suite of Milky Way Sized Halos
We present the largest number of Milky Way sized dark matter halos simulated
at very high mass ( M/particle) and temporal resolution
(5 Myrs/snapshot) done to date, quadrupling what is currently available
in the literature. This initial suite consists of the first 24 halos of the
(www.caterpillarproject.org) whose project goal of 60 -
70 halos will be made public when complete. We resolve 20,000
gravitationally bound subhalos within the virial radius of each host halo. Over
the ranges set by our spatial resolution our convergence is excellent and
improvements were made upon current state-of-the-art halo finders to better
identify substructure at such high resolutions (e.g., on average we recover
4 subhalos in each host halo above 10 M which would have
otherwise not been found using conventional methods). For our relaxed halos,
the inner profiles are reasonably fit by Einasto profiles ( = 0.169
0.023) though this depends on the relaxed nature and assembly history of
a given halo. Averaging over all halos, the substructure mass fraction is
, and mass function slope is d/d though we find scatter in the normalizations for fixed halo
mass due to more concentrated hosts having less subhalos at fixed subhalo mass.
There are no biases stemming from Lagrangian volume selection as all Lagrangian
volume types are included in our sample. Our detailed contamination study of
264 low resolution halos has resulted in obtaining very large and
unprecedented, high-resolution regions around our host halos for our target
resolution (sphere of radius Mpc) allowing for accurate
studies of low mass dwarf galaxies at large galactocentric radii and the very
first stellar systems at high redshift ( 10).Comment: 19 pages; 14 figures; 6 tables; Received September 3, 2015; Accepted
November 15, 2015; Published February 2, 201
Formation of Globular Cluster Candidates in Merging Proto-galaxies at High Redshift: A View from the FIRE Cosmological Simulations
Using a state-of-the-art cosmological simulation of merging proto-galaxies at
high redshift from the FIRE project, with explicit treatments of star formation
and stellar feedback in the interstellar medium, we investigate the formation
of star clusters and examine one of the formation hypothesis of present-day
metal-poor globular clusters. We find that frequent mergers in high-redshift
proto-galaxies could provide a fertile environment to produce long-lasting
bound star clusters. The violent merger event disturbs the gravitational
potential and pushes a large gas mass of ~> 1e5-6 Msun collectively to high
density, at which point it rapidly turns into stars before stellar feedback can
stop star formation. The high dynamic range of the reported simulation is
critical in realizing such dense star-forming clouds with a small dynamical
timescale, t_ff <~ 3 Myr, shorter than most stellar feedback timescales. Our
simulation then allows us to trace how clusters could become virialized and
tightly-bound to survive for up to ~420 Myr till the end of the simulation.
Because the cluster's tightly-bound core was formed in one short burst, and the
nearby older stars originally grouped with the cluster tend to be
preferentially removed, at the end of the simulation the cluster has a small
age spread.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, Accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices
of the Royal Astronomical Society, High-resolution version of this article
also available at http://www.jihoonkim.org/index/research.html#g
- …