The large scale structure of the universe in pancake models of galaxy formation

Abstract

This thesis investigates the evolution of characteristic structures in neutrino or adiabatic baryon-dominated models of galaxy formation. We discuss the collapse of protocluster or protosupercluster clouds in terms of the behaviour of non-rotating, homogeneous triaxial ellipsoids, predicting that galaxies should populate filamentary or quasi-spherical structures rather than the generic flat structures (pancakes). Secondly we have designed a numerical code which allows us to do fast cosmological hydrodynamics. We investigate the effect of explosions on the standard pancake picture for galaxy formation. Blast waves created by the early evolution of galaxies can not produce the anti-biasing effect required to reconcile the rapid evolution of clustering in n-body simulations of neutrino models with observations of galaxies at redshifts greater than one.