What are Baryon Acoustic Oscillations?
Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) are fluctuations in the density of visible baryonic matter in the universe, resulting from acoustic waves in the primordial plasma of the early universe. These sound waves propagated through the hot early universe until recombination (~380,000 years after the Big Bang), when they "froze" into the matter distribution.
In this simulation:
- White dots represent baryons (normal matter)
- Blue circles represent pressure waves (sound waves) in the primordial plasma
- As the universe expands (simulation progresses), watch how the initial overdensities create characteristic patterns
This high-performance simulator can handle up to 200 thousand particles and 10 sound waves, using:
- WebGL for hardware-accelerated rendering
- Spatial partitioning for efficient wave-particle interactions
- Instanced rendering for improved performance
- Multiple visualization modes for different perspectives