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TheIllustris project is an ongoing series of astrophysicalsimulations run by an international collaboration of scientists.[1] The aim is to study the processes ofgalaxy formation and evolution in theuniverse with a comprehensive physical model. Early results were described in a number of publications[2][3][4] following widespread press coverage.[5][6][7] The project publicly released all data produced by the simulations in April, 2015. Key developers of the Illustris simulation have beenVolker Springel (Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik) and Mark Vogelsberger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The Illustris simulation framework and galaxy formation model has been used for a wide range of spin-off projects, starting withAuriga andIllustrisTNG (both 2017) followed byThesan (2021),MillenniumTNG (2022) andTNG-Cluster (2023).
The originalIllustris project was carried out byMark Vogelsberger[8] and collaborators as the first large-scale galaxy formation application of Volker Springel's novel Arepo code.[9]
TheIllustris project includedlarge-scalecosmologicalsimulations of theevolution of the universe, spanning initial conditions of theBig Bang, to the present day,13.8 billion years later. Modeling, based on the most precise data and calculations currently available, are compared to actual findings of theobservable universe in order to better understand the nature of theuniverse, includinggalaxy formation,dark matter anddark energy.[5][6][7]
The simulation included many physical processes which are thought to be critical for galaxy formation. These include the formation of stars and the subsequent "feedback" due to supernova explosions, as well as the formation of super-massive black holes, their consumption of nearby gas, and their multiple modes of energetic feedback.[1][4][10]
Images, videos, and other data visualizations for public distribution are available atofficial media page.
The mainIllustris simulation was run on theCurie supercomputer atCEA (France) and theSuperMUC supercomputer at theLeibniz Computing Centre (Germany).[1][11] A total of 19 million CPU hours was required, using 8,192CPU cores.[1] The peak memory usage was approximately 25 TB of RAM.[1] A total of 136 snapshots were saved over the course of the simulation, totaling over 230 TB cumulative data volume.[2]
A computer program called "Arepo" was used to run the Illustris simulations. It was written by Volker Springel, the author ofGADGET. The name is derived from theSator Square. Arepo solves the coupled equations ofgravity andhydrodynamics using adiscretization of space based on a movingVoronoi tessellation. It is optimized for running on large, distributed memory supercomputers using anMPI approach.
In April, 2015 (eleven months after the first papers were published) the project team publicly released all data products from all simulations.[12] All original data files can be directly downloaded through thedata release webpage. This includes group catalogs of individual halos and subhalos, merger trees tracking these objects through time, full snapshot particle data at 135 distinct time points, and various supplementary data catalogs. In addition to direct data download, a web-based API allows for many common search anddata extraction tasks to be completed without needing access to the full data sets.
In December 2018, the Illustris simulation was recognized byDeutsche Post through a special seriesstamp.
The Illustris simulation framework has been used by a wide range of spin-off projects that focus on specific scientific questions.IllustrisTNG:TheIllustrisTNG project, "the next generation" follow up to the original Illustris simulation, was first presented in July, 2017. A team of scientists from Germany and the U.S. led byProf. Volker Springel.[13] First, a new physical model was developed, which among other features includedMagnetohydrodynamics planned three simulations, which used different volumes at different resolutions. The intermediate simulation (TNG100) was equivalent to the original Illustris simulation. Unlike Illustris, it was run on the Hazel Hen machine at theHigh Performance Computing Center, Stuttgart in Germany. Up to 25,000 computer cores were employed. In December 2018 the simulation data from IllustrisTNG was released publicly. The data service includes aJupyterLab interface.Auriga:TheAuriga project consists of high-resolution zoom simulations of Milky Way-like dark matter halos to understand the formation of our Milky Way galaxy.Thesan:TheThesan project is a radiative-transfer version of IllustrisTNG to explore the epoch of reionization.MillenniumTNG:TheMillenniumTNG employs the IllustrisTNG galaxy formation model in a larger cosmological volume to explore the massive end of the halo mass function for detailed cosmological probe forecasts.TNG-Cluster:A suite of high-resolution zoom-in simulations of galaxy clusters.
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