Evolution of the atomic and molecular gas content of galaxies in dark matter haloes

We present a semi-empirical model to infer the atomic and molecular hydrogen content of galaxies as a function of halo mass and time. Our model combines the SFR-halo mass-redshift relation (constrained by galaxy abundances) with inverted SFR-surface density relations to infer galaxy H I and H2 masses. We present gas scaling relations, gas fractions, and mass functions from z = 0 to z = 3 and the gas properties of galaxies as a function of their host halo masses. Predictions of our work include: 1) there is a ~ 0.2 dex decrease in the H I mass of galaxies as a function of their stellar mass since z = 1.5, whereas the H2 mass of galaxies decreases by > 1 dex over the same period. 2) galaxy cold gas fractions and H2 fractions decrease with increasing stellar mass and time. Galaxies with M* > 10^10 Msun are dominated by their stellar content at z < 1, whereas less-massive galaxies only reach these gas fractions at z = 0. We find the strongest evolution in relative gas content at z < 1.5. 3) the SFR to gas mass ratio decreases by an order of magnitude from z = 3 to z = 0. This is consistent with lower H2 fractions; these lower fractions in combination with smaller gas reservoirs correspond to decreased present-day galaxy SFRs. 4) an H2-based star- formation relation can simultaneously fuel the evolution of the cosmic star-formation and reproduce the observed weak evolution in the cosmic HI density. 5) galaxies residing in haloes with masses near 10^12 Msun are most efficient at obtaining large gas reservoirs and forming H2 at all redshifts. These two effects lie at the origin of the high star-formation efficiencies in haloes with the same mass.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS, 20 pages, 16 figures (+ 1 figure in appendix), data files are accessible through http://www.eso.org/~gpopping/Gergo_Poppings_Homepage/Data.htm

Conformally invariant wave-equations and massless fields in de Sitter spacetime

Conformally invariant wave equations in de Sitter space, for scalar and vector fields, are introduced in the present paper. Solutions of their wave equations and the related two-point functions, in the ambient space notation, have been calculated. The ``Hilbert'' space structure and the field operator, in terms of coordinate independent de Sitter plane waves, have been defined. The construction of the paper is based on the analyticity in the complexified pseudo-Riemanian manifold, presented first by Bros et al.. Minkowskian limits of these functions are analyzed. The relation between the ambient space notation and the intrinsic coordinates is then studied in the final stage.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, some details adde

Evolution of the Stellar-to-Dark Matter relation: separating star-forming and passive galaxies from z = 1 to 0

We use measurements of the stellar mass function, galaxy clustering, and galaxy-galaxy lensing within the COSMOS survey to constrain the stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR) of star forming and quiescent galaxies over the redshift range z = [0.2, 1.0]. For massive galaxies, M * gsim 1010.6 M ☉, our results indicate that star-forming galaxies grow proportionately as fast as their dark matter halos while quiescent galaxies are outpaced by dark matter growth. At lower masses, there is minimal difference in the SHMRs, implying that the majority low-mass quiescent galaxies have only recently been quenched of their star formation. Our analysis also affords a breakdown of all COSMOS galaxies into the relative numbers of central and satellite galaxies for both populations. At z = 1, satellite galaxies dominate the red sequence below the knee in the stellar mass function. But the number of quiescent satellites exhibits minimal redshift evolution; all evolution in the red sequence is due to low-mass central galaxies being quenched of their star formation. At M * ~ 1010 M ☉, the fraction of central galaxies on the red sequence increases by a factor of 10 over our redshift baseline, while the fraction of quenched satellite galaxies at that mass is constant with redshift. We define a "migration rate" to the red sequence as the time derivative of the passive galaxy abundances. We find that the migration rate of central galaxies to the red sequence increases by nearly an order of magnitude from z = 1 to z = 0. These results imply that the efficiency of quenching star formation for centrals is increasing with cosmic time, while the mechanisms that quench the star formation of satellite galaxies in groups and clusters is losing efficiency

An Increasing Stellar Baryon Fraction in Bright Galaxies at High Redshift

Recent observations have shown that the characteristic luminosity of the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function does not significantly evolve at 4 < z < 7 and is approximately M*_UV ~ -21. We investigate this apparent non-evolution by examining a sample of 178 bright, M_UV < -21 galaxies at z=4 to 7, analyzing their stellar populations and host halo masses. Including deep Spitzer/IRAC imaging to constrain the rest-frame optical light, we find that M*_UV galaxies at z=4-7 have similar stellar masses of log(M/Msol)=9.6-9.9 and are thus relatively massive for these high redshifts. However, bright galaxies at z=4-7 are less massive and have younger inferred ages than similarly bright galaxies at z=2-3, even though the two populations have similar star formation rates and levels of dust attenuation. We match the abundances of these bright z=4-7 galaxies to halo mass functions from the Bolshoi Lambda-CDM simulation to estimate the halo masses. We find that the typical halo masses in ~M*_UV galaxies decrease from log(M_h/Msol)=11.9 at z=4 to log(M_h/Msol)=11.4 at z=7. Thus, although we are studying galaxies at a similar mass across multiple redshifts, these galaxies live in lower mass halos at higher redshift. The stellar baryon fraction in units of the cosmic mean Omega_b/Omega_m rises from 5.1% at z=4 to 11.7% at z=7; this evolution is significant at the ~3-sigma level. This rise does not agree with simple expectations of how galaxies grow, and implies that some effect, perhaps a diminishing efficiency of feedback, is allowing a higher fraction of available baryons to be converted into stars at high redshifts.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. 15 pages, 5 figures, 6 table

An Empirical Mass Function Distribution

The halo mass function, encoding the comoving number density of dark matter halos of a given mass, plays a key role in understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. As such, it is a key goal of current and future deep optical surveys to constrain the mass function down to mass scales that typically host ${L}_{\star }$ galaxies. Motivated by the proven accuracy of Press–Schechter-type mass functions, we introduce a related but purely empirical form consistent with standard formulae to better than 4% in the medium-mass regime, {10}^{10}\mbox{--}{10}^{13}\,{h}^{-1}M☉. In particular, our form consists of four parameters, each of which has a simple interpretation, and can be directly related to parameters of the galaxy distribution, such as {L}_{\star }$. Using this form within a hierarchical Bayesian likelihood model, we show how individual mass-measurement errors can be successfully included in a typical analysis, while accounting for Eddington bias. We apply our form to a question of survey design in the context of a semi-realistic data model, illustrating how it can be used to obtain optimal balance between survey depth and angular coverage for constraints on mass function parameters. Open-source Python and R codes to apply our new form are provided at http://mrpy.readthedocs.org and https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tggd/index.html respectively

Exploring Galaxy Formation Models and Cosmologies with Galaxy Clustering

Using N-body simulations and galaxy formation models, we study the galaxy stellar mass correlation and the two-point auto-correlation. The simulations are run with cosmological parameters from the WMAP first, third and seven year results, which mainly differ in the perturbation amplitude of \sigma_{8}. The stellar mass of galaxies are determined using either a semi-analytical galaxy formation model or a simple empirical abundance matching method. Compared to the SDSS DR7 data at z=0 and the DEEP2 results at z=1, we find that the predicted galaxy clusterings from the semi-analytical model are higher than the data at small scales, regardless of the adopted cosmology. Conversely, the abundance matching method predicts good agreement with the data at both z=0 and z=1 for high \sigma_8 cosmologies (WMAP1 & WMAP7), but the predictions from a low \sigma_8 cosmology (WMAP3) are significantly lower than the data at z=0. We find that the excess clustering at small-scales in the semi-analytical model mainly arises from satellites in massive haloes, indicating that either the star formation is too efficient in low-mass haloes or tidal stripping is too inefficient at high redshift. Our results show that galaxy clustering is strongly affected by the models for galaxy formation, thus can be used to constrain the baryonic physics. The weak dependence of galaxy clustering on cosmological parameters makes it difficult to constrain the WMAP1 and WMAP7 cosmologies.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Accepted to MNRA