Cylindrical cosmological simulations with StePS
Overview
The global topology of the Universe can affect the long‑range gravitational forces through the boundary conditions. To study non-trivial topologies in detail, simulations that natively adopt such geometries are required. In this project, we introduce a compactified simulation framework that is only periodic along a single axis, while having infinite topology with isotropic boundary conditions towards the perpendicular directions. This non-trivial $S^1\times\mathbb{R}^2$ topological manifold has cylindrical symmetry, and the Lagrangian of a self-gravitating particle system in this space is invariant under translation along the cylinder’s axis. As a consequence of Noether’s theorem, the linear momentum along the cylinder’s axis and the angular momentum along the same axis are both conserved. Such a topology is particularly well-suited for studying naturally anisotropic environments such as filamentary structures.
Main simulation
To demonstrate the new simulation method, we run a new cosmological $N$-body simulation with our StePS simulation code in $S^1\times\mathbb{R}^2$ topology. We used best-fit Planck 2018 $\Lambda$CDM cosmological parameters, and a 2LPT method to generate the initial conditions of a periodic cylinder with height $L_{z} = 1.0\,\mathrm{Gpc}$, resolved radius $R_{\mathrm{sim}}= 500\,\mathrm{Mpc}$, and $N_{p} = 2.4 \cdot 10^7$ dark matter particles. The generated particle snapshots, halo catalogues, power spectra, and example notebooks can be downloaded from here.
Download links
Snapshots
These files are the primary output of the Simulation. They are in GAGDET-compatible HDF5 format, and containing particle positions, velocities, masses, and IDs. Overall 138 snapshots were saved during the simulation. These can be visualized with gadgetviewer or topsy.
Uncompressed size: 1.5 GB / snapshot
Mirrors
- ELTE Kooplex: TBA
- helsinkifi-my.sharepoint.com (only 4 snapshots): Download
Power spectra
The isotropic $P(k)$ power spectrum of the dark matter density field is a standard statistic used to quantify the clustering. We estimated the power spectra from particle snapshots using the Feldman–Kaiser–Peacock (FKP) method.
Mirrors
- ELTE Kooplex: TBA
- helsinkifi-my.sharepoint.com: Download
Halo Catalogues
These files contain all available information about the identified haloes. The haloes were identified with our own StePS_HF Spherical Overdensity (SO) halo finder code. Two formats are available to download:
-
ASCII — one halo per row (click to expand)
Identity and basics
Halo identification and fundamental properties.
Column index Field Description 1 IDUnique halo identifier 2 NpartNumber of particles 3 VolResolvedVolume-resolved flag 4 MvirVirial mass Virial sphere
Properties measured within the virial radius. Also contains \(V_{\rm Max}\) and the Klypin scale radius, which are unique to this group.
Column index Field Description 5 XPosition X 6 YPosition Y 7 ZPosition Z 8 RvirVirial radius 9 Vvir_XVelocity X 10 Vvir_YVelocity Y 11 Vvir_ZVelocity Z 12 VRMSvirRMS velocity dispersion 13 VcircvirCircular velocity 14 VMaxMaximum circular velocity 15 Rs_klypinScale radius (Klypin definition) 16 Jvir_XAngular momentum X 17 Jvir_YAngular momentum Y 18 Jvir_ZAngular momentum Z 19 Spin_BullockSpin parameter (Bullock et al.) 200b
Properties within R200b — radius enclosing mean density 200 times the background density.
Column index Field Description 20 M200bMass 21 R200bRadius 22 V200b_XVelocity X 23 V200b_YVelocity Y 24 V200b_ZVelocity Z 25 VRMS200bRMS velocity dispersion 26 Vcirc200bCircular velocity 27 J200b_XAngular momentum X 28 J200b_YAngular momentum Y 29 J200b_ZAngular momentum Z 200c
Properties within R200c — radius enclosing mean density 200 times the critical density.
Column index Field Description 30 M200cMass 31 R200cRadius 32 V200c_XVelocity X 33 V200c_YVelocity Y 34 V200c_ZVelocity Z 35 VRMS200cRMS velocity dispersion 36 Vcirc200cCircular velocity 37 J200c_XAngular momentum X 38 J200c_YAngular momentum Y 39 J200c_ZAngular momentum Z 500c
Properties within R500c — radius enclosing mean density 500 times the critical density.
Column index Field Description 40 M500cMass 41 R500cRadius 42 V500c_XVelocity X 43 V500c_YVelocity Y 44 V500c_ZVelocity Z 45 VRMS500cRMS velocity dispersion 46 Vcirc500cCircular velocity 47 J500c_XAngular momentum X 48 J500c_YAngular momentum Y 49 J500c_ZAngular momentum Z 1000c
Properties within R1000c — radius enclosing mean density 1000 times the critical density.
Column index Field Description 50 M1000cMass 51 R1000cRadius 52 V1000c_XVelocity X 53 V1000c_YVelocity Y 54 V1000c_ZVelocity Z 55 VRMS1000cRMS velocity dispersion 56 Vcirc1000cCircular velocity 57 J1000c_XAngular momentum X 58 J1000c_YAngular momentum Y 59 J1000c_ZAngular momentum Z 2500c
Properties within R2500c — radius enclosing mean density 2500 times the critical density.
Column index Field Description 60 M2500cMass 61 R2500cRadius 62 V2500c_XVelocity X 63 V2500c_YVelocity Y 64 V2500c_ZVelocity Z 65 VRMS2500cRMS velocity dispersion 66 Vcirc2500cCircular velocity 67 J2500c_XAngular momentum X 68 J2500c_YAngular momentum Y 69 J2500c_ZAngular momentum Z - Binary HDF5 — containing the same information as the ASCII catalogues, plus particle data (IDs, coordinates, velocities, masses) within \(r < 1.5\cdot R_{\mathrm{vir}}\).
Mirrors
- ELTE Kooplex (ASCII): TBA
- ELTE Kooplex (HDF5 + particles): TBA
- helsinkifi-my.sharepoint.com (ASCII): Download
- helsinkifi-my.sharepoint.com (HDF5 + particles): Download
Notebooks:
These jupyter notebooks contain examples of how to load, visualise, and analyse the provided simulation data.
Mirrors
- helsinkifi-my.sharepoint.com: Download
Companion simulations
These $S^1\times\mathbb{R}^2$ simulations were run with the same code and cosmological parameters as the simulation above, but with lower resolution and in smaller volumes. The purpose of these is to test analysis pipelines on much smaller datasets in $S^1\times\mathbb{R}^2$ topological manifold. The compressed files contain the initial conditions, the particle snapshots, the estimated power spectra, and the SO halo catalogues.
| Run | \(R_{\mathrm{sim}}\) | \(L_{z}\) | \(N_{p}\) | Uncompressed Size | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small #1 | \(750\,\mathrm{Mpc}\) | \(50.0\,\mathrm{Mpc}\) | \(5.0\cdot10^5\) | 441 MB | Download |
| Small #2 | \(750\,\mathrm{Mpc}\) | \(100.0\,\mathrm{Mpc}\) | \(1.0\cdot10^6\) | 840 MB | Download |
| Small #3 | \(750\,\mathrm{Mpc}\) | \(200.0\,\mathrm{Mpc}\) | \(2.0\cdot10^6\) | 1730 MB | Download |
Particle mass range (all companion runs):
$M_{p} = 1.89 \cdot 10^{11}\,\mathrm{M_\odot} - 1.85 \cdot 10^{14}\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$.