Metal and molecule cooling in simulations of structure formation

Cooling is the main process leading to the condensation of gas in the dark matter potential wells and consequently to star and structure formation. In a metal-free environment, the main available coolants are H, He, H-2 and HD; once the gas is enriched with metals, these also become important in defining the cooling properties of the gas. We discuss the implementation in GADGET-2 of molecular and metal cooling at temperatures lower than 10(4) K, following the time-dependent properties of the gas and pollution from stellar evolution. We have checked the validity of our scheme by comparing the results of some test runs with previous calculations of cosmic abundance evolution and structure formation, finding excellent agreement. We have also investigated the relevance of molecule and metal cooling in some specific cases, finding that inclusion of HD cooling results in a higher clumping factor of the gas at high redshifts, while metal cooling at low temperatures can have a significant impact on the formation and evolution of cold objects.