422 research outputs found
Where do "red and dead" early-type void galaxies come from?
Void regions of the Universe offer a special environment for studying
cosmology and galaxy formation, which may expose weaknesses in our
understanding of these phenomena. Although galaxies in voids are observed to be
predominately gas rich, star forming and blue, a sub-population of bright red
void galaxies can also be found, whose star formation was shut down long ago.
Are the same processes that quench star formation in denser regions of the
Universe also at work in voids?
We compare the luminosity function of void galaxies in the 2dF Galaxy
Redshift Survey, to those from a galaxy formation model built on the Millennium
Simulation. We show that a global star formation suppression mechanism in the
form of low luminosity "radio mode" AGN heating is sufficient to reproduce the
observed population of void early-types. Radio mode heating is environment
independent other than its dependence on dark matter halo mass, where, above a
critical mass threshold of approximately M_vir~10^12.5 M_sun, gas cooling onto
the galaxy is suppressed and star formation subsequently fades. In the
Millennium Simulation, the void halo mass function is shifted with respect to
denser environments, but still maintains a high mass tail above this critical
threshold. In such void halos, radio mode heating remains efficient and red
galaxies are found; collectively these galaxies match the observed space
density without any modification to the model. Consequently, galaxies living in
vastly different large-scale environments but hosted by halos of similar mass
are predicted to have similar properties, consistent with observations.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted MNRA
The Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory: Cloud-Based Mock Galaxy Catalogues
We introduce the Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory (TAO), an online
virtual laboratory that houses mock observations of galaxy survey data. Such
mocks have become an integral part of the modern analysis pipeline. However,
building them requires an expert knowledge of galaxy modelling and simulation
techniques, significant investment in software development, and access to high
performance computing. These requirements make it difficult for a small
research team or individual to quickly build a mock catalogue suited to their
needs. To address this TAO offers access to multiple cosmological simulations
and semi-analytic galaxy formation models from an intuitive and clean web
interface. Results can be funnelled through science modules and sent to a
dedicated supercomputer for further processing and manipulation. These modules
include the ability to (1) construct custom observer light-cones from the
simulation data cubes; (2) generate the stellar emission from star formation
histories, apply dust extinction, and compute absolute and/or apparent
magnitudes; and (3) produce mock images of the sky. All of TAO's features can
be accessed without any programming requirements. The modular nature of TAO
opens it up for further expansion in the future.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in ApJS. The
Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory (TAO) is now open to the public at
https://tao.asvo.org.au/. New simulations, models and tools will be added as
they become available. Contact [email protected] if you have data you
would like to make public through TAO. Feedback and suggestions are very
welcom
Semi-Analytic Galaxy Evolution (SAGE): Model Calibration and Basic Results
This paper describes a new publicly available codebase for modelling galaxy
formation in a cosmological context, the "Semi-Analytic Galaxy Evolution"
model, or SAGE for short. SAGE is a significant update to that used in Croton
et al. (2006) and has been rebuilt to be modular and customisable. The model
will run on any N-body simulation whose trees are organised in a supported
format and contain a minimum set of basic halo properties. In this work we
present the baryonic prescriptions implemented in SAGE to describe the
formation and evolution of galaxies, and their calibration for three N-body
simulations: Millennium, Bolshoi, and GiggleZ. Updated physics include: gas
accretion, ejection due to feedback, and reincorporation via the galactic
fountain; a new gas cooling--radio mode active galactic nucleus (AGN) heating
cycle; AGN feedback in the quasar mode; a new treatment of gas in satellite
galaxies; and galaxy mergers, disruption, and the build-up of intra-cluster
stars. Throughout, we show the results of a common default parameterization on
each simulation, with a focus on the local galaxy population.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS. SAGE is a
publicly available codebase for modelling galaxy formation in a cosmological
context, available at https://github.com/darrencroton/sage Questions and
comments can be sent to Darren Croton: [email protected]
Soft clustering analysis of galaxy morphologies: A worked example with SDSS
Context: The huge and still rapidly growing amount of galaxies in modern sky
surveys raises the need of an automated and objective classification method.
Unsupervised learning algorithms are of particular interest, since they
discover classes automatically. Aims: We briefly discuss the pitfalls of
oversimplified classification methods and outline an alternative approach
called "clustering analysis". Methods: We categorise different classification
methods according to their capabilities. Based on this categorisation, we
present a probabilistic classification algorithm that automatically detects the
optimal classes preferred by the data. We explore the reliability of this
algorithm in systematic tests. Using a small sample of bright galaxies from the
SDSS, we demonstrate the performance of this algorithm in practice. We are able
to disentangle the problems of classification and parametrisation of galaxy
morphologies in this case. Results: We give physical arguments that a
probabilistic classification scheme is necessary. The algorithm we present
produces reasonable morphological classes and object-to-class assignments
without any prior assumptions. Conclusions: There are sophisticated automated
classification algorithms that meet all necessary requirements, but a lot of
work is still needed on the interpretation of the results.Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures, 2 tables, submitted to A
The Effect of Major Mergers on Age and Metallicity Across the Fundamental Plane
Recent low-redshift observations have attempted to determine the star
formation histories of elliptical galaxies by tracking correlations between the
stellar population parameters (age and metallicity) and the structural
parameters that enter the fundamental plane (size and velocity dispersion).
These studies have found that velocity dispersion, rather than effective radius
or dynamical mass, is the main predictor of a galaxy's stellar age and
metallicity. In this work, we apply an analytic model that predicts the
structural properties of remnants formed in major mergers to progenitor disk
galaxies with properties taken from two different semi-analytic models. We
predict the effective radius, velocity dispersion, luminosity, age, and
metallicity of the merger remnants, enabling us to compare directly to
observations of early-type galaxies. While we find a tight correlation between
age and velocity dispersion, we find a stronger dependence of age and
metallicity on effective radius than observations report. The correlations
arise as a result of the dependence of gas fraction, age, and metallicity on
the stellar mass in the progenitor disk galaxies. These dependences induce a
rotation in the radius-velocity plane between the correlations with effective
radius and circular velocity in the disk galaxy progenitors, and the
correlations with effective radius and velocity dispersion in the elliptical
galaxy remnants. The differences between our results and those from
observations suggest that major mergers alone cannot produce the observed lack
of correlation between effective radius and stellar population parameters.
Simulations have suggested that subsequent minor mergers introduce scatter in
the effective radius while leaving the velocity dispersion essentially
unchanged. Incorporating such minor mergers into the model may, then, bring the
simulations into closer agreement with observations.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures. Submitted to MNRA
Sussing merger trees: a proposed merger tree data format
We propose a common terminology for use in describing both temporal merger trees and spatial structure trees for dark-matter halos. We specify a unified data format in HDF5 and provide example I/O routines in C, FORTRAN and PYTHON
The triggering probability of radio-loud AGN: A comparison of high and low excitation radio galaxies in hosts of different colors
Low luminosity radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) are generally found in
massive red elliptical galaxies, where they are thought to be powered through
gas accretion from their surrounding hot halos in a radiatively inefficient
manner. These AGN are often referred to as "low-excitation" radio galaxies
(LERGs). When radio-loud AGN are found in galaxies with a young stellar
population and active star formation, they are usually high-power
radiatively-efficient radio AGN ("high-excitation", HERG). Using a sample of
low-redshift radio galaxies identified within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS), we determine the fraction of galaxies that host a radio-loud AGN,
, as a function of host galaxy stellar mass, , star formation
rate, color (defined by the 4000 \angstrom break strength), radio luminosity
and excitation state (HERG/LERG).
We find the following: 1. LERGs are predominantly found in red galaxies. 2.
The radio-loud AGN fraction of LERGs hosted by galaxies of any color follows a
power law. 3. The fraction of red galaxies
hosting a LERG decreases strongly for increasing radio luminosity. For massive
blue galaxies this is not the case. 4. The fraction of green galaxies hosting a
LERG is lower than that of either red or blue galaxies, at all radio
luminosities. 5. The radio-loud AGN fraction of HERGs hosted by galaxies of any
color follows a power law. 6. HERGs have a
strong preference to be hosted by green or blue galaxies. 7. The fraction of
galaxies hosting a HERG shows only a weak dependence on radio luminosity cut.
8. For both HERGs and LERGs, the hosting probability of blue galaxies shows a
strong dependence on star formation rate. This is not observed in galaxies of a
different color.[abridged]Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
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