Mysterium Cosmographicum

Topology of the Large Scale Structure

Below you will find photos of the smoothed density field from the Horizon Run 3 N-body Simulation. (Papers can be found here and here.) More technichally, these photos represent a Spherical Mock Survey from the Horizon Run 3 -- along the past light cone -- out to redshift z=0.7, where Physically Self Bound Dark matter halos (PSB's) have been smoothed with a Gaussian ball of radius λ = 34 h−1 Mpc. This smoothing prescription erases gravitational infall, and the median contour illustrated here -- where half the pixels are colored purple and half the pixels are made transparent -- shows the multiply connected, sponge-like nature of a zero-mean Gaussian Random field.

For the stereographic pair of images below, position your head approximately 15 inches from the computer screen and cross your eyes, merging the two "Sponge-Like" Contours into a single, fused image. Bring the middle "ghost" image into focus. This middle image should be in 3-D. This effect is created by taking a picture of the same object from two slightly different angles -- a difference of approximately 2 degrees.

The Analglyph at bottom requires red cyan glasses to view in 3-D.