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The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU)

Beyond Stars, Before Galaxies: the Emergence of Globular Clusters in Cosmological Simulations

194531
Awarded Resources (in node hours)
Discoverer CPU
System Partition
29 July 2024 - 28 July 2025
Allocation Period

Understanding the origin of globular clusters (GCs) is at the frontier of astronomy.

Present-day GCs appear to have lost  memory of the initial conditions in which they originated and, despite a great wealth, the present data not allow one to reconstruct their evolutionary path. 

Fortunately, the recent discovery of the precursors of GCs at high redshifts has opened a new perspective. Resolving the formation of GCs is one of the most ambitious goals in galaxy formation, but requires very high spatial resolution, that poses a significant challenge to current simulations and hampers any comparison with observed GCs.

Following up on an existing set of simulations with sub-parsec spatial resolution, in the present project the study will carry on new cosmological simulations suitable to model the formation of GCs in a realistic proto-Galactic environment.

The team requires 24.9 Mhrs on DISCOVERER to model, for the first time in a cosmological context, the evolution of GCs for 2 Gyr of cosmic time, key to study with unprecedented detail the long-term dynamical history of these systems. 

The project's simulations are strategically important in competitive fields dominating the scientific scope of present and future observing facilities.