International Research Fellow Awards Program: Development of a State-of-the-art Three-dimensional Cosmological Gas Dynamics and Radiation Dynamics Code

Iiiev, Iiian T, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

00003682 Iliev The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will provide Dr. Ilian T. Iliev with support for six months to work with Dr. Alejandro C. Raga at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico. This project is being co-funded by NSF's Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences' Office of Multidisciplinary Activities. Sometime between the recombination epoch when the universe was only a million years old, and the appearance of the first quasars a billion years or more later, most matter in the universe became ionized again. By using numerical simulations to model this reionization epoch the PIs will work to answer the questions: What kind of objects reionized the universe and when? When and how did the first objects (stars, protogalaxies) form? How did the photoionizing ultraviolet background evolve? What was the impact of this background on the objects forming later? The project calls for development of state-of-the-art three-dimensional cosmological gas dynamics and radiation dynamics code to study in detail these important questions about the origin and evolution of the cosmic structures we see today. They expect to conduct an in-depth study of the processes during the reionization of the universe and the effects of feedback and radiative transfer on the formation of cosmic structures. This area of cosmology is concerned with understanding how all the structures in the universe we see are formed and evolved. Dr. Raga and his collaborators have developed an interstellar gas-and radiation dynamics code, which will be further developed to include the effects of self-gravity, adapting it for cosmological simulations.