Cosmological applications and predictions for large galaxy surveys require simulating large cosmological volumes (scales > 100 Mpc) with necessarily limited resolution. Large-volume cosmological hydrodynamic simulations follow explicitly the evolution of the dark matter and baryonic (normal matter) components in an expanding universe, incorporating a variety of "sub-grid" prescriptions to model key physical processes such as star formation and feedback from massive stars and the impact of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) feedback powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes. However, many of these processes remain poorly understood and require careful tuning of free parameters and sub-grid models.
The SIMBA project (Davé, Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2019) represents a significant step forward in modeling statistical populations of galaxies with realistic sub-grid physics based on higher resolution calculation. SIMBA incorporates star-formation driven winds calibrated to higher resolution simulations from the FIRE project (Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2017b). Crucially, SIMBA adds for the first time a supermassive black hole growth model based on gravitational torques (as implemented in Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2017a), itself based on detailed nuclear-scale simulations (Hopkins & Quataert 2011), and implements a two-mode AGN feedback scheme with accretion disk winds operating at high accretion rates and a large-scale jet mode operating at low accretion rates. The state-of-the-art sub-grid physics in SIMBA successfully reproduces many galaxy observations and is enabling a broad range of science.
The full SIMBA data is publicly available in the official SIMBA project repository
Check out this selection of SIMBA papers:
The origin of galaxy colour bimodality in the scatter of the stellar-to-halo mass relation. Cui, W., Davé, R., Peacock, J. A., Anglés-Alcázar, D., & Yang, X. 2021, Nature Astronomy.
Cosmological baryon transfer in the SIMBA simulations. Borrow, J., Anglés-Alcázar, D., & Davé, R. 2020, MNRAS, 491, 6102.
Black hole - galaxy correlations in SIMBA. Thomas, N., Davé, R., Anglés-Alcázar, D., & Jarvis, M. 2019, MNRAS, 487, 5764.
Simba: Cosmological simulations with black hole growth and feedback. Davé, R., Anglés-Alcázar, D., Narayanan, D., Li, Q., Rafieferantsoa, M. H., & Appleby, S. 2019, MNRAS, 486, 2827.
Supermassive black hole feedback heating the intergalactic medium over New York City 🙂
