Screening vs. gevolution: in chase of a perfect cosmological simulation code

Abstract

We compare two competing relativistic approaches to the N-body simulation of the Universe large-scale structure. To this end, employing the corresponding alternative computer codes ("gevolution" and "screening"), we conduct a series of cosmological simulations in boxes of different sizes and calculate the power spectra of the scalar perturbation $\Phi$, the frame-dragging vector potential ${\bf B}$ and the difference between scalar modes $\chi=\Phi-\Psi$. We demonstrate that the corresponding power spectra are in very good agreement between the compared schemes. For example, the relative difference of the power spectra for $\Phi$ is 0.04% maximum. Since the perturbed Einstein equations have much simpler form in the screening approach, the simulation with this code consumes less computational time, saving almost 40% of CPU hours.