Large-scale dark matter simulations

TL;DR

This paper reviews large-scale dark matter simulations, covering numerical methods, initial conditions, physical models, and their connection to cosmological observations, highlighting recent advances and future prospects.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of simulation techniques, physical models, and observational connections, including recent developments and future challenges in large-scale dark matter simulations.

Findings

Discussion of various numerical approaches and their efficiencies.

Analysis of different dark matter micro-physical properties.

Overview of state-of-the-art large-scale simulations.

Abstract

We review the field of collisionless numerical simulations for the large-scale structure of the Universe. We start by providing the main set of equations solved by these simulations and their connection with General Relativity. We then recap the relevant numerical approaches: discretization of the phase-space distribution (focusing on N-body but including alternatives, e.g., Lagrangian submanifold and Schr\"odinger-Poisson) and the respective techniques for their time evolution and force calculation (Direct summation, mesh techniques, and hierarchical tree methods). We pay attention to the creation of initial conditions and the connection with Lagrangian Perturbation Theory. We then discuss the possible alternatives in terms of the micro-physical properties of dark matter (e.g., neutralinos, warm dark matter, QCD axions, Bose-Einstein condensates, and primordial black holes), and extensions to account for multiple fluids (baryons and neutrinos), primordial non-Gaussianity and modified gravity. We continue by discussing challenges involved in achieving highly accurate predictions. A key aspect of cosmological simulations is the connection to cosmological observables, we discuss various techniques in this regard: structure finding, galaxy formation and baryonic modelling, the creation of emulators and light-cones, and the role of machine learning. We finalise with a recount of state-of-the-art large-scale simulations and conclude with an outlook for the next decade.