Prof. Volker Springel

Simulations of cosmic structure formation have come a long way. Nowadays, they are not only accurately predicting the dark matter backbone of the cosmic web and the internal structure of halos and their satellites far into the non-linear regime, but are also capable of following the baryonic sector with rapidly improving physical fidelity. In my talk, I will review the methodology and selected successes of recent hydrodynamical galaxy formation simulations, and critically discuss some of the primary uncertainties in modelling strong, scale-dependent feedback processes. I will also highlight predictions for the structure of magnetic fields in galaxies and the importance of cosmic rays in galaxy evolution. Finally, I discuss some of the challenges lying ahead in this field in the coming years.