title: Creating synthetic universes in a computer.
abstract: Cosmologists regularly generate synthetic universes of galaxies using computer simulations. Such catalogues have an essential role to play in the analysis and exploitation of current and forthcoming galaxy surveys. I review the different ways in which synthetic or 'mock' catalogues are produced and discuss the different physical processes that the models attempt to follow, explaining why it is important to be as realistic as possible when trying to forge the Universe.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Institute for Computational Cosmology, University of Durham, South Road, Durham, UK. c.m.baugh@durham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Carlton M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Baugh
mesh_terms: D001256:Astronomy; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003201:Computers; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical