Turbulence Modelling and Stirring Mechanisms in the Cosmological Large-scale Structure

TL;DR

This paper introduces FEARLESS, a numerical scheme for modeling turbulence in cosmological simulations, revealing different turbulence production mechanisms and properties in galaxy clusters and intergalactic medium.

Contribution

The paper presents FEARLESS, a novel adaptive mesh refinement scheme for simulating subgrid-scale turbulence in cosmological large-scale structure formation.

Findings

Turbulence production varies with redshift in different baryonic media.

Distinct stirring mechanisms drive turbulence in intra-cluster and intergalactic media.

Non-thermal pressure support properties differ between baryon phases.

Abstract

FEARLESS (Fluid mEchanics with Adaptively Refined Large Eddy SimulationS) is a numerical scheme for modelling subgrid-scale turbulence in cosmological adaptive mesh refinement simulations. In this contribution, the main features of this tool will be outlined. We discuss the application of this method to cosmological simulations of the large-scale structure. The simulations show that the production of turbulence has a different redshift dependence in the intra-cluster medium and the warm-hot intergalactic medium, caused by the distinct stirring mechanisms (mergers and shock interactions) acting in them. Some properties of the non-thermal pressure support in the two baryon phases are also described.