Extreme event dynamics in the formation of galaxy-sized dark matter structures Original Research Article

The search for turbulent-like patterns in nonlinear gravitational clustering has recently advanced due to N-body simulations based on the cold dark matter scenario. In this work we present a computational statistical analysis of the formation of galaxy halos by gravitational collapse in N-body simulation from the Virgo Consortium Data. We find that rescaled data points of gravitational energy for different redshifts collapse into similar patterns, well approximated by a Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution. Once similar statistical behavior was found for chaotic advection, this result is discussed in the context of non-dissipative turbulent-like behavior. From our analysis the unstable gravity field itself behaves as a chaotic advecting flow where the particles (galaxies) can be interpreted as turbulent tracers.