Approximations are both a necessity and a bane to astrophysical research, especially on the issue of the Missing Matter Problem. On one end the numbers involved are literally too astronomically large to work with without approximations, but on the other end with such complicated and occasionally chaotic systems like galaxies they can royally ruin the results. Our research group specializes in analyzing gravitational behavior of galaxies over millions of years using simulations. Specifically we use MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) in these simulations and compare our results to what has been observed through telescopes. Calculations in MOND are generally a bit more complicated than those in Dark Matter, and this leaves more room for error as we often cut out necessary parts of equations for our code to run faster. This bothered me immensely, and as a result this presentation will cover my research on increasing the accuracy of our code through new methods of calculation to view how large the effects of common approximations can be on galactic scales.
Author: Casey Scoggins
Faculty Advisor: Stephen Alexander, Department of Physics
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