Abstract
We present the full public release of all data from the Illustris simulation project. Illustris is a suite of large volume, cosmological hydrodynamical simulations run with the moving-mesh code Arepo and including a comprehensive set of physical models critical for following the formation and evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. Each simulates a volume of (106.5 Mpc)^3 and self-consistently evolves five different types of resolution elements from a starting redshift of z=127 to the present day, z=0. These components are: dark matter particles, gas cells, passive gas tracers, stars and stellar wind particles, and supermassive black holes. This data release includes the snapshots at all 136 available redshifts, halo and subhalo catalogs at each snapshot, and two distinct merger trees. Six primary realizations of the Illustris volume are released, including the flagship Illustris-1 run. These include three resolution levels with the fiducial "full" baryonic physics model, and a dark matter only analog for each. In addition, we provide four distinct, high time resolution, smaller volume "subboxes". The total data volume is ~265 TB, including ~800 full volume snapshots and ~30,000 subbox snapshots. We describe the released data products as well as tools we have developed for their analysis. All data may be directly downloaded in its native HDF5 format. Additionally, we release a comprehensive, web-based API which allows programmatic access to search and data processing tasks. In both cases we provide example scripts and a getting-started guide in several languages: currently, IDL, Python, and Matlab. This paper addresses scientific issues relevant for the interpretation of the simulations, serves as a pointer to published and on-line documentation of the project, describes planned future additional data releases, and discusses technical aspects of the release.
Highlights
Our theoretical understanding of the origin and evolution of cosmic structure throughout the universe is increasingly propelled forward by large, numerical simulations
Hydrodynamical simulations can account for diverse phenomena such as the formation of stars, the growth of supermassive black holes, the energetic feedback processes arising from both populations, the production and distribution of heavy elements, and so forth
The Illustris Project is a series of hydrodynamical simulations of a (106.5 Mpc)3 cosmological volume that follow the evolution of dark matter, cosmic gas, stars, and super massive black holes from a starting redshift of z = 127 to the present day, z = 0
Summary
Our theoretical understanding of the origin and evolution of cosmic structure throughout the universe is increasingly propelled forward by large, numerical simulations. Observational data focused on the large-scale structure of the universe and the properties of galaxies across cosmic time continue to increase Surveys such as SDSS (York et al, 2000), DEEP2 (Davis et al, 2003), CANDELS (Grogin et al, 2011), and 3D-HST (Brammer et al, 2012) provide local and high redshift measurements of the statistical properties of galaxy populations. The focus is on the halo and subhalo catalogs, their merger trees, and various post-processed galaxy property catalogs computed with semi-analytical models It has been continually extended with additional simulations, data products, and capabilities. We develop a web-based API which allows users to perform many common tasks without the need to download any full data files These include searching over the group catalogs, extracting particle data from the snapshots, accessing individual merger trees, and requesting visualization and further data analysis functions. Appendices A through C provide descriptions of all relevant data fields, while Appendix D presents several code examples for the API
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