An official website of the United States government
ABSTRACT We quantify the impact of galaxy formation on dark matter halo shapes using cosmological simulations at redshift z = 0. Using magnetohydrodynamic simulations from the IllustrisTNG project, we focus on haloes of mass $$10^{10\!-\!14} \, \rm M_{\odot }$$ from the 50 Mpc (TNG50) and 100 Mpc (TNG100) boxes and compare them to dark matter-only (DMO) analogues and other simulations, e.g. Numerical Investigation of a Hundred Astrophysical Objects (NIHAO) and Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE). We further quantify the prediction uncertainty by varying the feedback models using smaller 25 $${\rm Mpc}\, h^{-1}$$ boxes. We find that (i) galaxy formation results in rounder haloes compared to DMO simulations, in qualitative agreement with past results. Haloes of mass $${\approx }2\times 10^{12} \, \rm M_{\odot }$$ are most spherical, with an average minor-to-major axial ratio of $$\langle s \rangle$$ ≈ 0.75 in the inner halo, an increase of 40 per cent compared to their DMO counterparts. No significant difference is present for low-mass $$10^{10} \, \rm M_{\odot }$$ haloes; (ii) stronger feedback, e.g. increasing galactic wind speed, reduces the impact of baryons; (iii) the inner halo shape correlates with the stellar mass fraction, explaining the dependence of halo shapes on feedback models; and (iv) the fiducial and weaker feedback models are most consistent with observational estimates of the Milky Way halo shape. At fixed halo mass, very diverse and possibly unrealistic feedback models all predict inner shapes closer to one another than to the DMO results. Because of the large halo-to-halo variation in halo shape, a larger observational sample is required to statistically distinguish different baryonic prescriptions.
more »
« less
FLORAH: a generative model for halo assembly histories
ABSTRACT The mass assembly history (MAH) of dark matter haloes plays a crucial role in shaping the formation and evolution of galaxies. MAHs are used extensively in semi-analytic and empirical models of galaxy formation, yet current analytic methods to generate them are inaccurate and unable to capture their relationship with the halo internal structure and large-scale environment. This paper introduces florah (FLOw-based Recurrent model for Assembly Histories), a machine-learning framework for generating assembly histories of ensembles of dark matter haloes. We train florah on the assembly histories from the Gadget at Ultra-high Redshift with Extra Fine Time-steps and vsmdplN-body simulations and demonstrate its ability to recover key properties such as the time evolution of mass and concentration. We obtain similar results for the galaxy stellar mass versus halo mass relation and its residuals when we run the Santa Cruz semi-analytic model on florah-generated assembly histories and halo formation histories extracted from an N-body simulation. We further show that florah also reproduces the dependence of clustering on properties other than mass (assembly bias), which is not captured by other analytic methods. By combining multiple networks trained on a suite of simulations with different redshift ranges and mass resolutions, we are able to construct accurate main progenitor branches with a wide dynamic mass range from $z=0$ up to an ultra-high redshift $$z \approx 20$$, currently far beyond that of a single N-body simulation. florah is the first step towards a machine learning-based framework for planting full merger trees; this will enable the exploration of different galaxy formation scenarios with great computational efficiency at unprecedented accuracy.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2019786
- PAR ID:
- 10538484
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 533
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0035-8711
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 3144-3163
- Size(s):
- p. 3144-3163
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
ABSTRACT We present a simple regulator-type framework designed specifically for modelling formation of dwarf galaxies. Despite its simplicity, when coupled with realistic mass accretion histories of haloes from simulations and reasonable choices for model parameter values, the framework can reproduce a remarkably broad range of observed properties of dwarf galaxies over seven orders of magnitude in stellar mass. In particular, we show that the model can simultaneously match observational constraints on the stellar mass–halo mass relation, as well as observed relations between stellar mass and gas phase and stellar metallicities, gas mass, size, and star formation rate, as well as general form and diversity of star formation histories of observed dwarf galaxies. The model can thus be used to predict photometric properties of dwarf galaxies hosted by dark matter haloes in N-body simulations, such as colours, surface brightnesses, and mass-to-light ratios and to forward model observations of dwarf galaxies. We present examples of such modelling and show that colours and surface brightness distributions of model galaxies are in good agreement with observed distributions for dwarfs in recent observational surveys. We also show that in contrast with the common assumption, the absolute magnitude–halo mass relation is generally predicted to have a non-power law form in the dwarf regime, and that the fraction of haloes that host detectable ultra-faint galaxies is sensitive to reionization redshift (zrei) and is predicted to be consistent with observations for zrei ≲ 9.more » « less
-
ABSTRACT JWST observations have revealed a population of galaxies bright enough that potentially challenge standard galaxy formation models in the Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology. Using a minimal empirical framework, we investigate the influence of variability on the rest-frame ultra-violet (UV) luminosity function of galaxies at z ≥ 9. Our study differentiates between the median UV radiation yield and the variability of UV luminosities of galaxies at a fixed dark matter halo mass. We primarily focus on the latter effect, which depends on halo assembly and galaxy formation processes and can significantly increase the abundance of UV-bright galaxies due to the upscatter of galaxies in lower-mass haloes. We find that a relatively low level of variability, σUV ≈ 0.75 mag, matches the observational constraints at z ≈ 9. However, increasingly larger σUV is necessary when moving to higher redshifts, reaching $$\sigma _{\rm UV} \approx 2.0\, (2.5)\, {\rm mag}$$ at z ≈ 12 (16). This implied variability is consistent with expectations of physical processes in high-redshift galaxies such as bursty star formation and dust clearance during strong feedback cycles. Photometric constraints from JWST at z ≳ 9 therefore can be reconciled with a standard ΛCDM-based galaxy formation model calibrated at lower redshifts without the need for adjustments to the median UV radiation yield.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)ABSTRACT The presence of massive black holes (BHs) with masses of the order of $$10^9\, {\rm M_\odot }$$, powering bright quasars when the Universe was less than 1 Gyr old, poses strong constraints on their formation mechanism. Several scenarios have been proposed to date to explain massive BH formation, from the low-mass seed BH remnants of the first generation of stars to the massive seed BHs resulting from the rapid collapse of massive gas clouds. However, the plausibility of some of these scenarios to occur within the progenitors of high-z quasars has not yet been thoroughly explored. In this work, we investigate, by combining dark-matter only N-body simulations with a semi-analytic framework, whether the conditions for the formation of massive seed BHs from synchronized atomic-cooling halo pairs and/or dynamically heated (DH) mini-haloes are fulfilled in the overdense regions where the progenitors of a typical high-redshift quasar host form and evolve. Our analysis shows that the peculiar conditions in such regions, i.e. strong halo clustering and high star formation rates, are crucial to produce a non-negligible number of massive seed BH host candidates: we find ≈1400 DH metal-free mini-haloes, including one of these which evolves to a synchronized pair and ends up in the massive quasar-host halo by z = 6. This demonstrates that the progenitors of high-redshift quasar host haloes can harbour early massive seed BHs. Our results further suggest that multiple massive seed BHs may form in or near the quasar host’s progenitors, potentially merging at lower redshifts and yielding gravitational wave events.more » « less
-
Abstract A key obstacle to accurate models of the first stars and galaxies is the vast range of distance scales that must be considered. While star formation occurs on sub-parsec scales within dark matter (DM) minihalos, it is influenced by large-scale baryon-dark matter streaming velocities (vbc) and Lyman-Werner (LW) radiative feedback which vary significantly on scales of ∼100 Mpc. We present a novel approach to this issue in which we utilize artificial neural networks (NNs) to emulate the Population III (PopIII) and Population II (PopII) star formation histories of many small-scale cells given by a more complex semi-analytic framework based on DM halo merger trees. Within each simulation cell, the NN takes a set of input parameters that depend on the surrounding large-scale environment, such as the cosmic overdensity,δ(x⃗), andvbcof the cell, then outputs the resulting star formation far more efficiently than is possible with the semi-analytic model. This rapid emulation allows us to self-consistently determine the LW background intensity on ∼100 Mpc scales, while simultaneously including the detailed merger histories (and corresponding star formation histories) of the low-mass minihalos that host the first stars. Comparing with the full semi-analytic framework utilizing DM halo merger trees, our NN emulators yield star formation histories with redshift-averaged errors of ∼7.3% and ∼5.2% for PopII and PopIII, respectively. When compared to a simpler sub-grid star formation prescription reliant on halo mass function integration, we find that the diversity of halo merger histories in our simulation leads to enhanced spatial fluctuations, an earlier transition from PopIII to PopII dominated star formation, and more scatter in star formation histories overall.more » « less
