Ohio State University researchers are leveraging powerful supercomputers to investigate one of the key observational probes of "dark energy," the mysterious energy form that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate over time.
The OSU project, led by Chris Orban, a graduate research fellow in physics at Ohio State's Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, focuses on simulations created on Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) systems to simplify and better characterize a subtle dark matter clustering feature. The new model allows cosmologists to gain a more accurate understanding of certain aspects of large-scale structure, such as the effect of the expansion of the universe on the growth of density fluctuations.
"Knowing how the dark matter 'reacts' to the expansion of the universe is crucial for learning the most about dark energy and dark matter from large astronomical surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, of which OSU is a collaborating member," said Orban. "In particular, there is a subtle clustering feature seen in this data set called 'Baryon Acoustic Oscillations' (BAO), which turns out to be very useful for constraining cosmological parameters like the equation of state of dark energy."
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