ABSTRACT
Michael L. Norman, James Bordner, Daniel Reynolds, Rick Wagner Laboratory for Computational Astrophysics, Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA 92093, (mlnorman, jobordner, drreynolds, rpwagner)@ucsd.edu
Greg L. Bryan Astronomy Department, Columbia University, 550 West 120th St., New York, NY 10027, gbryan@astro.columbia.edu
Robert Harkness San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, harkness@sdsc.edu
Brian O’Shea Theoretical Astrophysics (T-6), Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM 87545, bwoshea@lanl.gov
The universe is homogeneous and isotropic on scales exceeding half a billion light years, but on smaller scales it is clumpy, exhibiting a hierarchy of structures ranging from individual galaxies up to groups and clusters of galaxies, and on the largest scales, the galaxies are aligned in a cosmic web of filaments and voids. In between the galaxies is a diffuse plasma which is the reservoir of matter out of which galaxies form. Understanding the origin and evolution of these structures is the goal of cosmological structure formation (CSF).
