The Impact of Baryons on the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe

Abstract

Numerical simulations play an important role in current astronomy researches. Previous dark-matter-only simulations have represented the large-scale structure of the Universe. However, nowadays, hydro-dynamical simulations with baryonic models, which can directly present realistic galaxies, may twist these results from dark-matter-only simulations. In this chapter, we mainly focus on these three statistical methods: power spectrum, two-point correlation function and halo mass function, which are normally used to characterize the large-scale structure of the Universe. We review how these baryon processes influence the cosmology structures from very large scale to quasi-linear and non-linear scales by comparing dark-matter-only simulations with their hydro-dynamical counterparts. At last, we make a brief discussion on the impacts coming from different baryon models and simulation codes.

14 pages, 8 figures. Chapter 7 for the book "Trends in Modern Cosmology". Comments are welcome. In this new version (V1), some citation errors are corrected and an additional subsection is included compared to the published version "https://www.intechopen.com/books/trends-in-modern-cosmology/the-impact-of-baryons-on-the-large-scale-structure-of-the-universe" V(2): correct references