Simulation Controls
Initial Conditions
Display Options
Cosmology
Instructions
- Watch how small initial density perturbations grow into cosmic web structure
- Particles start nearly uniform and cluster under gravity
- Filaments, walls, and voids emerge from gravitational instability
- Higher spectral index creates more small-scale power
- Adjust cosmology to see how dark energy slows growth
Physics
This simulation uses the Zel'dovich approximation for structure formation: particles are displaced from a uniform grid by a displacement field proportional to the growing mode D(a). The displacement field is generated from initial Gaussian random density perturbations with a power spectrum P(k) ∝ k^n.
As the universe expands, gravity amplifies overdensities into the cosmic web we see today: dense clusters at nodes, filaments connecting them, walls surrounding voids, and empty voids where matter has flowed out.