Smoothed Particle Interpolation

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) discretization techniques are generalized to develop a method, smoothed particle interpolation (SPI), for solving initial value problems of systems of non-hydrodynamical nature. Under this approach, SPH is viewed as strictly an interpolation scheme and, as such, suitable for solving general hyperbolic and parabolic equations. The SPI method is tested on (1) the wave equation with inhomogeneous sound speed and (2) Burgers equation. The efficiency of SPI is studied by comparing SPI solutions to those obtained with standard finite difference methods. It is shown that the power of SPI arises when the smoothing particles are free to move.Comment: 13 pages (LaTeX), 9 figures (not included), [email protected]

The Imprint of Proper Motion of Nonlinear Structures on the Cosmic Microwave Background

We investigate the imprint of nonlinear matter condensations on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in an $\Omega=1$, Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model universe. Temperature anisotropies are obtained by numerically evolving matter inhomogeneities and CMB photons from the beginning of decoupling until the present epoch. The underlying density field produced by the inhomogeneities is followed from the linear, through the weakly clustered, into the fully nonlinear regime. We concentrate on CMB temperature distortions arising from variations in the gravitational potentials of nonlinear structures. We find two sources of temperature fluctuations produced by time-varying potentials: (1) anisotropies due to intrinsic changes in the gravitational potentials of the inhomogeneities and (2) anisotropies generated by the peculiar, bulk motion of the structures across the microwave sky. Both effects generate CMB anisotropies in the range of 10^{-7} \siml \Delta T/T \siml 10^{-6} on scales of $\sim 1^{\circ}$. For isolated structures, anisotropies due to proper motion exhibit a dipole-like signature in the CMB sky that in principle could yield information on the transverse velocity of the structures.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures (included), uuencoded postcript fil

Density of Topological Defects After a Quench

We present results of numerical studies of the Landau-Ginzburg dynamics of the order parameter in one-dimensional models inspired by the condensed matter analogues of cosmological phase transitions. The main goal of our work is to show that, as proposed by one of us \cite{Zurek85b}, the density of the frozen-out topological defects is set by the competition between the quench rate --- the rate at which the phase transition is taking place --- and the relaxation rate of the order parameter. In other words, the characteristic domain size, which determines the typical separation of topological defects in the new broken symmetry phase, is of the order of the correlation length at the instant at which the relaxation timescale of the order parameter equals the time remaining to the phase transition. In estimating the size of topological domains, this scenario shares with the original Kibble mechanism the idea that topological defects will form along the boundaries of independently selected regions of the new broken symmetry vacuum. However, it derives the size of such domains from non-equilibrium aspects of the transition (quench rate), as opposed to Kibble's original proposal in which their size was estimated from the Ginzburg temperature above which thermally activated symmetry restoration can occur.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, LaTe

Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies from the Rees-Sciama Effect in Ω0≤1\Omega_{0} \le 1 Universes

We investigate the imprint of nonlinear matter condensations on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) in $\Omega_{0}<1$ cold dark matter (CDM) model universes. We consider simulation domains ranging from $120h^{-1}$ Mpc to $360h^{-1}$ Mpc in size. We concentrate on the secondary temperature anisotropies induced by time varying gravitational potentials occurring after decoupling. Specifically, we investigate the importance of the Rees-Sciama effect due to: (1) intrinsic changes in the gravitational potential of forming, nonlinear structures, (2) proper motion of nonlinear structures, and (3) late time decay of gravitational potential perturbations in open universes. CMB temperature anisotropies are obtained by numerically evolving matter inhomogeneities and CMB photons from an early, linear epoch ($z=100$) to the present, nonlinear epoch $(z=0)$. We test the dependence and relative importance of these secondary temperature anisotropies as a function of the scale of the underlying matter (voids, superclusters) and as a function of $\Omega_{0}$. The results of the $\Omega_{0}<1$ models are compared to a similarly executed $\Omega_{0}=1.0$ simulation. We find that in low density models all three sources of anisotropy could be relevant and reach levels of $\Delta T/T \sim 10^{-6}$. In particular, we find that for $\Omega_{0}<1$ at large scales, secondary temperature anisotropies are dominated by the decaying potential.Comment: 20 pages + 7 figures + 4 plates, self-expanding uuencoded compressed tar archive of postscript file