Assigned ID: 147 ----- Submission 1 (Fri Jan 21 04:43:57 GMT 2005) ----- Phase I Proposal 147 (theorysim) successfully submitted. ----- Submission 6 (Fri Jan 21 23:05:35 GMT 2005) ----- We propose to use the hydrodynamic code Enzo to run the first adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) simulations of the Lyman alpha forest to z=0 that have the size, resolution and parameter values to permit precise quantitative comparison with redshifted H I absorption lines in hundreds of HST QSO spectra from FOS, GHRS, and STIS. We will explicitly explore the effects of the intensity of the ionizing radiation (UVB) and the amplitude of the matter power spectrum. We will derive scaling relations between the simulation input and the statistics of the output Lyman alpha forest, which we will use to estimate the parameters that best match the Lyman-alpha forest in HST spectra. We expect two immediate results. First, we will discover whether popular values for cosmological parameters and UVB provide a precise description of the Lyman-alpha forest at z < 1.6. Second, we will make more accurate measurements of the evolution of the intensity of the UVB. The simulations will be useful for a wide variety of studies of the redshifted absorption in QSO spectra, such as the distribution of metals including O~VI absorption that traces the warm-hot intergalactic medium. We will make the simulated absorption spectra and the raw simulation box data available to the community through our site http://www.cosmos.ucsd.edu/~gso/index.html.

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