KICP Research: Structure Formation

The structures we see in the Universe today - galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and low density regions ("cosmic voids") - evolved from small fluctuations in the density of the Universe that formed immediately after the Big Bang. By studying these structures with observations on some of the largest existing telescopes and with sophisticated supercomputer simulations, researchers at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and their colleagues are piecing together a coherent story of structure formation. While not all elements of this story are yet in place, some of them have been identified: we know that gravity is the engine that drives the growth of structure and we have a candidate theory for the origin of the initial fluctuations: primordial inflation.

The frontier of research on cosmic structures is understanding how observable matter - gas and stars -  trace the distribution of dark matter that is observable only via its gravitational effects and understanding the main  physical processes that drive galaxy formation.

KICP scientists are studying all aspects of cosmic structure: from the smallest, ultra-faint galaxies orbiting our own home, the Milky Way galaxy, to the largest objects in the universe, enormous clusters of galaxies containing hundreds of galaxies like the Milky Way and thousands of smaller ones; from the farthest reaches of space containing only the tenuous primeval gas (the so-called "intergalactic medium") to the violent gas flows in and out of galaxies ("circum-galactic medium") to the complex dynamic processes of gas transformation and star formation deep inside galaxies (in their "interstellar medium"); from the very beginning of cosmic structure formation in tiny (on cosmic scale) lumps of gas and dark matter to the present day richness and diversity of galaxies and their arrangements on a wide range of spatial scales.

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