Numerical Observations of Simulated Universes: Progress and Challenges

Abstract

I discuss recent progress in high resolution numerical cosmological simulations, reviewing the computational algorithms used with special emphasis on multiphysics simulations and adaptive multi-resolution techniques. Progress will be highlighted by several applications of the structured adaptive mesh refinement code ENZO to galaxy and X-ray cluster formation. I conclude by discussing the notion of Numerical Observatories on the Web by way of a working prototype.