2009/04/23 by Steffen R. Knollmann, Alexander Knebe · 3 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors #Computational science #Computer science #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Halo #Identification (biology) #Key (lock) #Physics #Process (computing) #Programming language #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0067-0049/182/2/608
18 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJS
arxiv created 2009/04/23 · openalex publication_date 2009/05/19 · arxiv updated 2015/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Cosmological simulations are the key tool for investigating the different processes involved in the formation of the universe from small initial density perturbations to galaxies and clusters of galaxies observed today. The identification and analysis of bound objects, halos, is one of the most important steps in drawing useful physical information from simulations. In the advent of larger and larger simulations, a reliable and parallel halo finder, able to cope with the ever-increasing data files, is a must. In this work we present the freely available MPI parallel halo finder Ahf . We provide a description of the algorithm and the strategy followed to handle large simulation data. We also describe the parameters a user may choose in order to influence the process of halo finding, as well as pointing out which parameters are crucial to ensure untainted results from the parallel approach. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ability of Ahf to scale to high-resolution simulations.