The majority of galaxies with current star-formation rates (SFRs), SFRo >= 10^-3 Msun/yr, in the Local Cosmological Volume where observations should be reliable, have the property that their observed SFRo is larger than their average star formation rate. This is in tension with the evolution of galaxies described by delayed-tau models, according to which the opposite would be expected. The tension is apparent in that local galaxies imply the star formation timescale tau approx 6.7 Gyr, much longer than the 3.5-4.5 Gyr obtained using an empirically determined main sequence at several redshifts. Using models where the SFR is a power law in time of the form propto (t - t1)^eta for t1 = 1.8 Gyr (with no stars forming prior to t1) implies that eta = 0.18 +- 0.03. This suggested near-constancy of a galaxy's SFR over time raises non-trivial problems for the evolution and formation time of galaxies, but is broadly consistent with the observed decreasing main sequence with increasing age of the Universe.
We introduce and apply a new approach to probe the response of galactic stellar haloes to the interplay between cosmological merger histories and galaxy formation physics. We perform dark matter-only, zoomed simulations of two Milky Way-mass hosts and make targeted, controlled changes to their cosmological histories using the genetic modification technique. Populating each history's stellar halo with a semi-empirical, particle tagging approach then enables a controlled study, with all instances converging to the same large-scale structure, dynamical and stellar mass at $z=0$ as their reference…
We study merger histories of dark-matter haloes in a suite of N-body simulations that span different cosmological models. The simulated cases include the up-to-date WMAP5 cosmology and other test cases based on the Einstein-deSitter cosmology with different power spectra. We provide a robust fitting function for the conditional mass function (CMF) of progenitor haloes of a given halo. This fit is valid for the different cosmological models and for different halo masses and redshifts, and it is a significant improvement over earlier estimates. Based on this fit, we develop a simple and accurate…
We present a new method for inferring galaxy star formation histories (SFH) using machine learning methods coupled with two cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. We train Convolutional Neural Networks to learn the relationship between synthetic galaxy spectra and high resolution SFHs from the EAGLE and Illustris models. To evaluate our SFH reconstruction we use Symmetric Mean Absolute Percentage Error (SMAPE), which acts as a true percentage error in the low-error regime. On dust-attenuated spectra we achieve high test accuracy (median SMAPE $= 10.5\%$). Including the effects of simulated obs…
Conformity denotes the correlation of properties between pairs of galaxies as a function of separation. Correlations between properties such as star formation rate (SFR), stellar mass, and specific star formation rate (sSFR) have implications for the impact of environment upon galaxy formation and evolution. Conformity between primary galaxies and satellites within the same dark matter halo has been well documented in simulations and observations. However, the existence of conformity at greater distances - known as two-halo conformity - remains uncertain. We investigate whether galaxies in the…
We use the APOSTLE and Auriga cosmological simulations to study the star formation histories (SFHs) of field and satellite dwarf galaxies. Despite sizeable galaxy-to-galaxy scatter, the SFHs of APOSTLE and Auriga dwarfs exhibit robust average trends with galaxy stellar mass: faint field dwarfs ($10^5<M_{\rm star}/M_\odot<10^{6.5}$) have, on average, steadily declining SFHs, whereas brighter dwarfs ($10^{7.5}<M_{\rm star}/M_\odot<10^{9}$) show the opposite trend. Intermediate-mass dwarfs have roughly constant SFHs. Satellites exhibit similar average trends, but with substantially suppressed sta…
BAQARO: Tracing Stochastic Black Hole Growth Histories and Quasar Lightcurves in a Cosmological Context
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian（天体物理中心 | 哈佛与史密森尼学会）；Leiden Observatory, Leiden University（莱顿天文台，莱顿大学）；Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara（加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校物理系）
A common approach in semi-analytic modeling of galaxy formation is to construct Monte Carlo realizations of merger histories of dark matter halos whose masses are sampled from a halo mass function. Both the mass function itself, and the merger rates used to construct merging histories are calibrated to N-body simulations. Typically, "backsplash" halos (those which were once subhalos within a larger halo, but which have since moved outside of the halo) are counted in both the halo mass function, and in the merger rates (or, equivalently, progenitor mass functions). This leads to a double-counti…
The classical cosmological V/Vm-test is introduced and elaborated. Use of the differential distribution p(V/Vm) of the V/Vm-variable rather than just the mean <V/Vm> leads directly to the cosmological number density without any need for assumptions about the cosmological evolution of the underlying (quasar) population. Calculation of this number density n(z) from p(V/Vm) is illustrated using the best sample that was available in 1981, when this method was developed. This sample of 76 quasars is clearly too small for any meaningful results. The method will be later applied to a much larger cosm…
Upcoming galaxy surveys and 21-cm experiments targeting high redshifts $z\gtrsim 6$ are highly complementary probes of galaxy formation and reionization. However, in order to expedite the large volume simulations relevant for 21-cm observations, many models of galaxies within reionization codes are entirely subgrid and/or rely on halo abundances only. In this work, we explore the extent to which resolving and modeling individual galaxy formation histories affects predictions both for the galaxy populations detectable by upcoming surveys and the signatures of reionization accessible to upcoming…
Star Formation Histories (SFHs) reveal physical processes that influence how galaxies form their stellar mass. We compare the SFHs of a sample of 36 nearby (D $\leq$ 4 Mpc) dwarf galaxies from the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (ANGST), inferred from the Color Magnitude Diagrams (CMDs) of individually resolved stars in these galaxies, with those reconstructed by broad-band Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) fitting using the Dense Basis SED fitting code. When comparing individual SFHs, we introduce metrics for evaluating SFH reconstruction techniques. For both the SED and CMD methods, the m…
Untangling Similarities and Differences in Star Formation Histories Across Cosmological Simulations
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学理论天体物理研究所）；David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学大卫·邓普克天文与天体物理系）；Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto（多伦多大学统计科学系）；Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学邓普克天文与天体物理研究所）；Data Sciences Institute, University of Toronto（多伦多大学数据科学研究所）；Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi（夏威夷大学天体物理研究所）
Cosmological galaxy formation simulations can now produce rich and diverse ensembles of galaxy histories. These simulated galaxy histories, taken all together, provide an answer to the question "how do galaxies form?" for the models used to construct them. We characterize such galaxy history ensembles both to understand their properties and to identify points of comparison for histories within a given galaxy formation model or between different galaxy formation models and simulations. We focus primarily on stellar mass histories of galaxies with the same final stellar mass, for six final stell…
The origin of dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) is investigated in a global cosmological context by simultaneously following the evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy and its dwarf satellites. This approach enable to study the formation of dSphs in their proper birth environment and to reconstruct their own merging histories. The proposed picture simultaneously accounts for several dSph and Milky Way properties, including the Metallicity Distribution Functions of metal-poor stars. The observed features are interpreted in terms of physical processes acting at high redshifts.
We show that a model consisting of individual, log-normal star formation histories for a volume-limited sample of $z\approx0$ galaxies reproduces the evolution of the total and quiescent stellar mass functions at $z\lesssim2.5$ and stellar masses $M_*\geq10^{10}\,{\rm M_\odot}$. This model has previously been shown to reproduce the star formation rate/stellar mass relation (${\rm SFR}$--$M_*$) over the same interval, is fully consistent with the observed evolution of the cosmic ${\rm SFR}$ density at $z\leq8$, and entails no explicit "quenching" prescription. We interpret these results/feature…
We analyze the formation histories of 19 galaxies from cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics zoom-in resimulations. We construct mock three-colour images and show that the models reproduce observed trends in the evolution of galaxy colours and morphologies. However, only a small fraction of galaxies contains bars. Many galaxies go through phases of central mass growth by in-situ star formation driven by gas-rich mergers or misaligned gas infall. These events lead to accretion of low-angular momentum gas to the centres and leave imprints on the distributions of z=0 stellar circularities,…
We present a new suite of cosmological zoom-in hydrodynamical ($\approx 20\, \mathrm{pc}$ spatial resolution) simulations of Milky-Way mass galaxies to study how a varying mass ratio for a Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus (GSE) progenitor impacts the $z=0$ chemodynamics of halo stars. Using the genetic modification approach, we create five cosmological histories for a Milky-Way-mass dark matter halo ($M_{200} \approx 10^{12} \, M_\mathrm{\odot}$), incrementally increasing the stellar mass ratio of a $z\approx2$ merger from 1:25 to 1:2, while fixing the galaxy's final dynamical, stellar mass and large-sc…
To provide a quantitative cosmological context to ongoing observational work on the formation histories and location of compact massive galaxies, we locate and study a sample of exceptionally compact systems in the Bolshoi simulation, using the dark matter structural parameters from a real, compact massive galaxy (NGC 1277) as a basis for our working criteria. We find that over 80% of objects in this nominal compact category are substructures of more massive groups or clusters, and that the probability of a given massive substructure being this compact increases significantly with the mass of …
We analyze a suite of 33 cosmological simulations of the evolution of Milky Way-mass galaxies in low-density environments. Our sample spans a broad range of Hubble types at z=0, from nearly bulgeless disks to bulge-dominated galaxies. Despite the fact that a large fraction of the bulge is typically in place by z=1, we find no significant correlation between the morphology at z=1 and at z=0. The z=1 progenitors of disk galaxies span a range of morphologies, including smooth disks, unstable disks, interacting galaxies and bulge-dominated systems. By z=0.5, spiral arms and bars are largely in pla…
We present constraints on the timescale of star formation variability and the correlation between star formation and host halo accretion histories of star-forming (SF) central galaxies from the scatter of the stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR). SF galaxies are found to have a tight relationship between their star formation rates and stellar masses on the so-called "star-forming sequence" (SFS), which characterizes their SF histories and $M_*$ growths. Meanwhile, observed SHMR constraints connect $M_*$ growth to halo accretion history. Combining these observed trends with a cosmological $N$-b…
In the Local Group (LG), almost all satellite dwarf galaxies that are within the virial radius of the Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) exhibit strong environmental influence. The orbital histories of these satellites provide the key to understanding the role of the MW/M31 halo, lower-mass groups, and cosmic reionization on the evolution of dwarf galaxies. We examine the virial-infall histories of satellites with M_star = 10^{3-9} M_sun using the ELVIS suite of cosmological zoom-in dissipationless simulations of 48 MW/M31-like halos. Satellites at z = 0 fell into the MW/M31 halos typically 5 …
We compile a large sample of nearby galaxies that are satellites of hosts using a well known SDSS group catalogue. From this sample, we create an `ancient infallers' and `recent infallers' subsample, based on the mean infall time predicted from cosmological simulations for galaxies with their location in phase-space. We compare the stellar mass growth histories of the galaxies in these two subsamples, as determined from multi-wavelength SED fitting that uses a comprehensive library of star formation history shapes derived from cosmological simulations. By simultaneously controlling for satelli…
The new era of Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs): Typical star formation histories of LAEs in the ILLUSTRIS simulation
Universidad Central de Chile（智利中央大学）；Universidad de La Serena（拉塞雷纳大学）；Universidad Andrés Bello（安德烈斯贝洛大学）；Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey（新泽西州立罗格斯大学）；Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton（普林斯顿高等研究院）；Purdue University（普渡大学）
ERGO-ML: The assembly histories of HSC galaxy images via invertible neural networks, contrastive learning, and cosmological simulations
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie（马克斯·普朗克天文学研究所）；Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Department of Physics, Stanford University（斯坦福大学物理系卡弗里粒子天体物理学与宇宙学研究所）；SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory（斯坦福直线加速器中心）；International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, University of Western Australia（西澳大利亚大学国际射电天文研究中心）；Universität Heidelberg, Zentrum für Astronomie, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik（海德堡大学天文学中心理论天体物理研究所）；Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS), Waseda University（早稻田大学高等研究院）；Center for Data Science, Waseda University（早稻田大学数据科学中心）；Departamento de Astrofísica, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Universidad de La Laguna（拉帕鲁纳大学加那利天体物理研究所天体物理学系）
Satellite galaxies in groups and clusters are more likely to have low star formation rates (SFR) and lie on the red-sequence than central (field) galaxies. Using galaxy group/cluster catalogs from SDSS DR7, together with a cosmological N-body simulation to track satellite orbits, we examine the star formation histories and quenching timescales of satellites of M_star > 5 x 10^9 M_sun at z=0. We first explore satellite infall histories: group preprocessing and ejected orbits are critical aspects of satellite evolution, and properly accounting for these, satellite infall typically occurred at z~…
We study the evolution of dust in a cosmological volume using a hydrodynamical simulation in which the dust production is coupled with the MUPPI (MUlti Phase Particle Integrator) sub-resolution model of star formation and feedback. As for the latter, we keep as reference the model setup calibrated previously to match the general properties of Milky Way like galaxies in zoom-in simulations. However, we suggest that an increase of the star formation efficiency with the local dust to gas ratio would better reproduce the observed evolution of the cosmic star formation density. Moreover, the paucit…
Nearby galaxies are the end result of their cosmological evolution, which is predicted to be influenced by the growth of their host dark matter halos. This co-evolution potentially leaves signatures in present-day observed galaxy properties, which might be essential to further understand how the growth and properties of galaxies are connected to those of their host halos. In this work, we study the evolutionary histories of nearby galaxies both in terms of their host halos and the scatter of the star-forming main sequence by investigating their time-resolved stellar populations using absorptio…
We present analytical reconstructions of type Ia supernova (SN Ia) delay time distributions (DTDs) by way of two independent methods: by a Markov chain Monte Carlo best-fit technique comparing the volumetric SN Ia rate history to today's compendium cosmic star-formation history, and secondly through a maximum likelihood analysis of the star formation rate histories of individual galaxies in the GOODS/CANDELS field, in comparison to their resultant SN Ia yields. We adopt a flexible skew-normal DTD model, which could match a wide range of physically motivated DTD forms. We find a family of solut…
Accurately reproducing the thin cold gas discs observed in nearby spiral galaxies has been a long standing issue in cosmological simulations. Here, we present measurements of the radially resolved HI scale height in 22 non-interacting Milky Way-mass galaxies from the FIREbox cosmological volume. We measure the HI scale heights using five different approaches commonly used in the literature: fitting the vertical volume density distribution with a Gaussian, the distance between maximum and half-maximum of the vertical volume density distribution, a semi-empirical description using the velocity d…
The orbits of satellite galaxies encode rich information about their histories. We investigate the orbital dynamics and histories of satellite galaxies around Milky Way (MW)-mass host galaxies using the FIRE-2 cosmological simulations, which, as previous works have shown, produce satellite mass functions and spatial distributions that broadly agree with observations. We first examine trends in orbital dynamics at z = 0, including total velocity, specific angular momentum, and specific total energy: the time of infall into the MW-mass halo primarily determines these orbital properties. We then …
Primordial supermassive stars (SMSs) formed in atomic-cooling halos at z ~ 15 - 20 are leading candidates for the seeds of the first quasars. Past numerical studies of the evolution of SMSs have typically assumed constant accretion rates rather than the highly variable flows in which they form. We model the evolution of SMSs in the cosmological flows that create them using the Kepler stellar evolution and implicit hydrodynamics code. We find that they reach masses of 1 - 2 x $10^5 M_{\odot}$ before undergoing direct-collapse to black holes (DCBHs) during or at the end of their main-sequence hy…
We introduce a new set of eight Milky Way-sized cosmological simulations performed using the AMR code ART + Hydrodynamics in a LCDM cosmology. The set of zoom-in simulations covers present-day virial masses in the 0.83-1.56 x 10^12 msun range and is carried out with our simple but effective deterministic star formation (SF) and ``explosive' stellar feedback prescriptions. The work is focused on showing the goodness of the simulated set of ``field' Milky Way-sized galaxies. Our results are as follows. (a) The circular velocity curves of our simulated galaxies are nearly flat. (b) Runs ending wi…
We use high-resolution, multi-band imaging of ~16,500 galaxies in the CANDELS fields at 0 < z < 2.5 to study the evolution of color gradients and half-mass radii over cosmic time. We find that galaxy color gradients at fixed mass evolve rapidly between z~2.5 and z~1, but remain roughly constant below z~1. This result implies that the sizes of both star-forming and quiescent galaxies increase much more slowly than previous studies found using half-light radii. The half-mass radius evolution of quiescent galaxies is fully consistent with a model which uses observed minor merger rates to predict …
We analyze the merger and assembly histories of Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31)-like galaxies to quantify how, and how often, disk galaxies of this mass can survive recent major mergers (stellar mass ratio $\ge$ 1:4). For this, we use the cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical simulation TNG50 and identify 198 analog galaxies, selected based on their $z=0$ stellar mass ($10^{10.5-11.2} {\rm M_{\odot}}$), disky stellar morphology and local environment. Firstly, major mergers are common: 85 per cent (168) of MW/M31-like galaxies in TNG50 have undergone at least one major merger across their life…
The formation histories of globular clusters (GCs) are a key diagnostic for understanding their relation to the evolution of the Universe through cosmic time. We use the suite of 25 cosmological zoom-in simulations of present-day Milky Way-mass galaxies from the E-MOSAICS project to study the formation histories of stars, clusters, and GCs, and how these are affected by the environmental dependence of the cluster formation physics. We find that the median lookback time of GC formation in these galaxies is ${\sim}10.73~$Gyr ($z=2.1$), roughly $2.5~$Gyr earlier than that of the field stars (${\s…
The relationship between active galactic nuclei activity and environment has been long discussed, but it is unclear if these relations extend into the dwarf galaxy mass regime -- in part due to the limits in both observations and simulations. We aim to investigate if the merger histories and environments are significantly different between AGN and non-AGN dwarf galaxies in cosmological simulations, which may be indicative of the importance of these for AGN activity in dwarf galaxies, and whether these results are in line with observations. Using the IllustrisTNG flagship TNG100-1 run, 6\,771 d…
We introduce the Dense Basis method for Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) fitting. It accurately recovers traditional SED parameters, including M$_*$, SFR and dust attenuation, and reveals previously inaccessible information about the number and duration of star formation episodes and the timing of stellar mass assembly, as well as uncertainties in these quantities. This is done using basis Star Formation Histories (SFHs) chosen by comparing the goodness-of-fit of mock galaxy SEDs to the goodness-of-reconstruction of their SFHs. We train and validate the method using a sample of realistic SFH…
SIRIUS: The relation between the diversity of dwarf galaxies and their formation histories
The University of Tokyo（东京大学）；Kobe University（神户大学）；Center for Planetary Science (CPS), Graduate School of Science, Kobe University（神户大学行星科学中心）；Tohoku University of Community Service and Science（东北社区服务科学大学）
Using a new, high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of a Milky Way-type (MW-type) galaxy, we explore how a merger-rich assembly history affects the mass budget of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH). We examine a MW-mass halo at the present epoch whose evolution is characterized by several major mergers to isolate the importance of merger history on black hole accretion. This study is an extension of Bellovary et. al. 2013, which analyzed the accretion of high mass, high redshift galaxies and their central black holes, and found that the gas content of the central black ho…
There is increasing observational and theoretical evidence for a correlation between the metallicity and the mass of the stellar halo for galaxies with Milky Way-like stellar masses. Using the Illustris cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, we find that this relationship arises because a single massive massive progenitor contributes the bulk of the mass to the accreted stellar component as well as sets its metallicity. Moreover, in the Illustris simulations, this relationship extends over 3 orders of magnitude in accreted stellar mass for central galaxies. We show that for Milky Way-like ma…
Understanding the variability of galaxy star formation histories (SFHs) across a range of timescales provides insight into the underlying physical processes that regulate star formation within galaxies. We compile the SFHs of galaxies at $z=0$ from an extensive set of models, ranging from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations (Illustris, IllustrisTNG, Mufasa, Simba, EAGLE), zoom simulations (FIRE-2, g14, and Marvel/Justice League), semi-analytic models (Santa Cruz SAM) and empirical models (UniverseMachine), and quantify the variability of these SFHs on different timescales using the power s…
Planetesimals inevitably bear the signatures of their natal environment, preserving in their composition a record of the metallicity of their system's original gas and dust, albeit one altered by the formation process. When planetesimals are dispersed from their system of origin, this record is carried with them. As each star is likely to contribute at least $10^{12}$ interstellar objects, the Galaxy's drifting population of interstellar objects (ISOs) provides an overview of the properties of its stellar population through time. Using the EAGLE cosmological simulation and models of protoplane…
