Cosmic Flows surveys and CLUES simulations

Accepted, in press in Astron. Nachr. / AN 333, No. 5, 433 -- 437 (2012)Cosmic Flows is a program to determine galaxy distances for 30,000 galaxies with systematic errors below 2%, almost ten times the number currently known and a five-fold improvement in systematics. The resultant velocity field will provide input for constrained local universe simulations: CLUES (www.clues-project.org). The observed and the simulated universe are then comparatively studied. This synergy of observations and theory distinguishes the program, and should lead to fundamental discoveries regarding the sources of deviations from the expansion of the universe. Specifically, the program should give a definitive answer to one of the most outstanding unsolved problem in cosmology: the cause of the motion of 630 km/s of our Galaxy manifested in the microwave background dipole. This paper presents current results with particular emphasis on the "great attractor" reconstruction