538 research outputs found
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
Connecting massive galaxies to dark matter halos in BOSS - I. Is galaxy color a stochastic process in high-mass halos?
We use subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) to model the stellar mass function
(SMF) and clustering of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS)
"CMASS" sample at . We introduce a novel method which accounts for
the stellar mass incompleteness of CMASS as a function of redshift, and produce
CMASS mock catalogs which include selection effects, reproduce the overall SMF,
the projected two-point correlation function , the CMASS ,
and are made publicly available. We study the effects of assembly bias above
collapse mass in the context of "age matching" and show that these effects are
markedly different compared to the ones explored by Hearin et al. (2013) at
lower stellar masses. We construct two models, one in which galaxy color is
stochastic ("AbM" model) as well as a model which contains assembly bias
effects ("AgM" model). By confronting the redshift dependent clustering of
CMASS with the predictions from our model, we argue that that galaxy colors are
not a stochastic process in high-mass halos. Our results suggest that the
colors of galaxies in high-mass halos are determined by other halo properties
besides halo peak velocity and that assembly bias effects play an important
role in determining the clustering properties of this sample.Comment: 22 pages. Appendix. B added. Matches the version accepted by MNRAS.
Mock galaxy catalog and HOD table are available at
http://www.massivegalaxies.co
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 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
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
Faint dwarfs as a test of DM models: WDM versus CDM
We use high-resolution Hydro+N-Body cosmological simulations to compare the assembly and evolution of a small field dwarf (stellar mass ∼106−7M⊙, total mass 1010M⊙) in Λ-dominated cold dark matter (CDM) and 2keV warm dark matter (WDM) cosmologies. We find that star formation (SF) in the WDM model is reduced and delayed by 1-2Gyr relative to the CDM model, independently of the details of SF and feedback. Independent of the dark matter (DM) model, but proportionally to the SF efficiency, gas outflows lower the central mass density through ‘dynamical heating', such that all realizations have circular velocities <20 km s−1 at 500pc, in agreement with local kinematic constraints. As a result of dynamical heating, older stars are less centrally concentrated than younger stars, similar to stellar population gradients observed in nearby dwarf galaxies. Introducing an important diagnostic of SF and feedback models, we translate our simulations into artificial colour-magnitude diagrams and star formation histories (SFHs) in order to directly compare to available observations. The simulated galaxies formed most of their stars in many ∼10Myr long bursts. The CDM galaxy has a global SFH, H i abundance and Fe/H and alpha-elements distribution well matched to current observations of dwarf galaxies. These results highlight the importance of directly including ‘baryon physics' in simulations when (1) comparing predictions of galaxy formation models with the kinematics and number density of local dwarf galaxies and (2) differentiating between CDM and non-standard models with different DM or power spectr
Unbound Particles in Dark Matter Halos
We investigate unbound dark matter particles in halos by tracing particle
trajectories in a simulation run to the far future (a = 100). We find that the
traditional sum of kinetic and potential energies is a very poor predictor of
which dark matter particles will eventually become unbound from halos. We also
study the mass fraction of unbound particles, which increases strongly towards
the edges of halos, and decreases significantly at higher redshifts. We discuss
implications for dark matter detection experiments, precision calibrations of
the halo mass function, the use of baryon fractions to constrain dark energy,
and searches for intergalactic supernovae.Comment: Significant improvements following referee suggestion
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