Pathways to A Realistic Milky Way

Abstract

The formation of disk galaxies such as our own Milky Way is one of the major problems facing the current cosmological paradigm, in which the Universe is dominated by dark energy and cold dark matter (CDM). Models which are based on structure formation within the CDM cosmologies have invariably failed to reproduce some of the most important properties of disk galaxies. Recent advances in our ability to implement and resolve star formation and supernova explosions have been shown to improve our ability to model low mass disk galaxies. Extending these tantalizing results to a simulated galaxy the size of the Milky Way is only possible using supercomputers like those available in the DEISA infrastructure. Such a successful simulation of the Milky Way will allow direct comparison with the myriad of observations on the Milky Way, and provide an interpretive framework for understanding its formation and evolution.