Numerical Simulations of the Lyman Alpha Forest
Research Team
- Gilberto Gomez
- Jason Wright
- Shulan Liu
Research Adviser: David Weinberg
Lyman Alpha Forest
Absorption of background quasar light by intervening clouds at various
redshifts
- Traces structure in the intergalactic medium
- Allows comparison of observed and theoretical IGM structure
- Independent of evolutionary models of galaxies, quasars
- Good for range of redshifts, z=2-5
- Numerous
Simulations
- We compared the spectra generated with SPH and PM codes using the
flux decrement distribution and the threshold crossing frequency.
- We compared the spectra generated with the PM code using different
box sizes and spatial resolutions. We found no convergence of the
results as we went to higher resolutions.
- We need to compare the calculated spectra using SPH and PM codes
at different resolutions.