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On Robustness in Cosmological Simulations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Marie Gueguen
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Abstract

The Cold Dark Matter model faces many controversies at small scales, as simulations fail to reproduce the observed properties of dark matter (DM) halos. Since rival DM models differ on their predictions about the structure of DM halos, understanding their mass distribution is crucial for determining the nature of DM. However, only numerical approaches to determining what a hypothesis implies for the mass distribution are possible. Hence, simulations are a crucial part of evaluating DM rival models, as is assessing their reliability. I argue that robustness analysis is not a sufficient criterion for the trustworthiness of cosmological simulations.

Type
Physical Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 5: PSA 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II Symposia Papers , December 2020 , pp. 1197 - 1208
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am very grateful to Chris Smeenk for his support and advice. I would also like to thank Frank van den Bosch, Eric Winsberg, Craig Fox, the participants of the Rotman Summer Institute of Cosmology, and an anonymous referee for very helpful feedback and discussion. This article is based on work done while I was funded as a graduate student researcher under John Templeton Foundation grant 61048, New Directions in Philosophy of Cosmology.

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