A cosmological hydrodynamic code based on the Piecewise Parabolic Method

Abstract

We present a hydrodynamical code for cosmological simulations which uses the Piecewise Parabolic Method (PPM) to follow the dynamics of gas component and an N-body Particle-Mesh algorithm for the evolution of collisionless component. The gravitational interaction between the two components is regulated by the Poisson equation which is solved by a standard FFT procedure. In order to simulate cosmological flows we have introduced several modifications to the original PPM scheme which we describe in detail. Various tests of the code are presented including adiabatic expansion, single and multiple pancake formation and three-dimensional cosmological simulations with initial conditions based on the cold dark matter scenario.