Simulation of Colliding Galaxies

A couple of years ago, I did a project for a Parallel Processing course that utilized a computer simulation of colliding galaxies. I adapted an existing program to my computer cluster running Pelican HPC. The program utilizes a simulation tool called GADGET-2 and it computes gravitational forces with a Tree-SPH (Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics) algorithm. The tree is used for short-range gravitational forces, while long-range forces are computed with a Fast Fourier Transform particle mesh method. The program was written and refined over the years by Volker Springel of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and is freely available on the internet at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/gadget/index.shtml.

This computer simulation allows us to watch collisions that in nature take hundreds of millions of years. The model shows that a collision of two spiral galaxies can create elliptical galaxy. Although the animation appears rough and crude (windows media file, what else), the result you'll see resembles an elliptical galaxy. Lots of data (energy, etc) is generated, but I won't include that here. I hope to refine this program over the summer.