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  1. ABSTRACT

    We present a sample of 446 galaxy pairs constructed using the cosmological simulation IllustrisTNG-100 at z = 0, with M$_{\rm FoF,dm} = 10^{11}\!-\!10^{13.5}$ M⊙. We produce ideal mock SDSS g-band images of all pairs to test the reliability of visual classification schema employed to produce samples of interacting galaxies. We visually classify each image as interacting or not based on the presence of a close neighbour, the presence of stellar debris fields, disturbed discs, and/or tidal features. By inspecting the trajectories of the pairs, we determine that these indicators correctly identify interacting galaxies ∼45 per cent of the time. We subsequently split the sample into the visually identified interacting pairs (VIP; 38 pairs) and those which are interacting but are not visually identified (nonVIP; 47 pairs). We find that VIP have undergone a close passage nearly twice as recently as the non-VIP, and typically have higher stellar masses. Further, the VIP sit in dark matter haloes that are approximately 2.5 times as massive, in environments nearly 2 times as dense, and are almost a factor of 10 more affected by the tidal forces of their surroundings than the nonVIP. These factors conspire to increase the observability of tidal features and disturbed morphologies, making the VIP more likely to be identified. Thus, merger rate calculations which rely on stellar morphologies are likely to be significantly biased toward massive galaxy pairs which have recently undergone a close passage.

     
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  2. ABSTRACT We explore how the splashback radius (Rsp) of galaxy clusters, measured using the number density of the subhalo population, changes based on various selection criteria using the IllustrisTNG cosmological galaxy formation simulation. We identify Rsp by extracting the steepest radial gradient in a stacked set of clusters in 0.5 dex wide mass bins, with our clusters having halo masses 1013 ≤ M200,mean/M⊙ ≤ 1015. We apply cuts in subhalo mass, galaxy stellar mass, i-band absolute magnitude, and specific star formation rate. We find that, generally, galaxies of increasing mass and luminosity trace smaller measured splashback radii relative to the intrinsic dark matter radius. We also show that quenched galaxies may be used to reliably reconstruct the dark matter splashback radius. This trend is likely due to changes in the galaxy population. Additionally, we are able to reconcile different observational predictions that Rsp based upon galaxy number counts and dark matter may either align or show significant offset (e.g. those using optically or SZ-selected clusters) through the selection functions that these studies employ. Finally, we demonstrate that changes in Rsp measured through number counts are not due to a simple change in galaxy abundance inside and outside of the cluster. 
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  3. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT We present the radial gas-phase, mass-weighted metallicity profiles and gradients of the TNG50 star-forming galaxy population measured at redshifts z = 0–3. We investigate the redshift evolution of gradients and examine relations between gradient (negative) steepness and galaxy properties. We find that TNG50 gradients are predominantly negative at all redshifts, although we observe significant diversity among these negative gradients. We determine that the gradients of all galaxies grow more negative with redshift at a roughly constant rate of approximately $-0.02\ \mathrm{dex\, kpc^{-1}}/\Delta z$. This rate does not vary significantly with galaxy mass. We observe a weak negative correlation between gradient (negative) steepness and galaxy stellar mass at z < 2. However, when we normalize gradients by a characteristic radius defined by the galactic star formation distribution, we find that these normalized gradients do not vary significantly with either stellar mass or redshift. We place our results in the context of previous simulations and show that TNG50 high-redshift gradients are more negative than those of models featuring burstier feedback, which may further highlight high-redshift gradients as important discriminators of galaxy formation models. We also find that z = 0 and z = 0.5 TNG50 gradients are consistent with the gradients observed in galaxies at these redshifts, although the preference for flat gradients observed in redshift z ≳ 1 galaxies is not present in TNG50. If future JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) and ELT (Extremely Large Telescope) observations validate these flat gradients, it may indicate a need for simulation models to implement more powerful radial gas mixing within the ISM (interstellar medium), possibly via turbulence and/or stronger winds. 
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  4. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT Surveys in the next decade will deliver large samples of galaxy clusters that transform our understanding of their formation. Cluster astrophysics and cosmology studies will become systematics limited with samples of this magnitude. With known properties, hydrodynamical simulations of clusters provide a vital resource for investigating potential systematics. However, this is only realized if we compare simulations to observations in the correct way. Here we introduce the mock-X analysis framework, a multiwavelength tool that generates synthetic images from cosmological simulations and derives halo properties via observational methods. We detail our methods for generating optical, Compton-y and X-ray images. Outlining our synthetic X-ray image analysis method, we demonstrate the capabilities of the framework by exploring hydrostatic mass bias for the IllustrisTNG, BAHAMAS, and MACSIS simulations. Using simulation derived profiles we find an approximately constant bias b ≈ 0.13 with cluster mass, independent of hydrodynamical method, or subgrid physics. However, the hydrostatic bias derived from synthetic observations is mass-dependent, increasing to b = 0.3 for the most massive clusters. This result is driven by a single temperature fit to a spectrum produced by gas with a wide temperature distribution in quasi-pressure equilibrium. The spectroscopic temperature and mass estimate are biased low by cooler gas dominating the emission, due to its quadratic density dependence. The bias and the scatter in estimated mass remain independent of the numerical method and subgrid physics. Our results are consistent with current observations and future surveys will contain sufficient samples of massive clusters to confirm the mass dependence of the hydrostatic bias. 
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  5. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT It has been proposed that gravothermal collapse due to dark matter self-interactions (i.e. self-interacting dark matter, SIDM) can explain the observed diversity of the Milky Way (MW) satellites’ central dynamical masses. We investigate the process behind this hypothesis using an N-body simulation of a MW-analogue halo with velocity-dependent SIDM (vdSIDM) in which the low-velocity self-scattering cross-section, $\sigma _{\rm T}/m_{\rm x}$, reaches 100 cm2 g−1; we dub this model the vd100 model. We compare the results of this simulation to simulations of the same halo that employ different dark models, including cold dark matter (CDM) and other, less extreme SIDM models. The masses of the vd100 haloes are very similar to their CDM counterparts, but the values of their maximum circular velocities, Vmax, are significantly higher. We determine that these high Vmax subhaloes were objects in the mass range [5 × 106, 1 × 108] M⊙ at z = 1 that undergo gravothermal core collapse. These collapsed haloes have density profiles that are described by single power laws down to the resolution limit of the simulation, and the inner slope of this density profile is approximately −3. Resolving the ever decreasing collapsed region is challenging, and tailored simulations will be required to model the runaway instability accurately at scales <1 kpc. 
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  6. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT The splashback radius, Rsp, is a physically motivated halo boundary that separates infalling and collapsed matter of haloes. We study Rsp in the hydrodynamic and dark matter-only IllustrisTNG simulations. The most commonly adopted signature of Rsp is the radius at which the radial density profiles are steepest. Therefore, we explicitly optimize our density profile fit to the profile slope and find that this leads to a $\sim 5{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ larger radius compared to other optimizations. We calculate Rsp for haloes with masses between 1013 and 15 M⊙ as a function of halo mass, accretion rate, and redshift. Rsp decreases with mass and with redshift for haloes of similar M200 m in agreement with previous work. We also find that Rsp/R200 m decreases with halo accretion rate. We apply our analysis to dark matter, gas, and satellite galaxies associated with haloes to investigate the observational potential of Rsp. The radius of steepest slope in gas profiles is consistently smaller than the value calculated from dark matter profiles. The steepest slope in galaxy profiles, which are often used in observations, tends to agree with dark matter profiles but is lower for less massive haloes. We compare Rsp in hydrodynamic and N-body dark matter-only simulations and do not find a significant difference caused by the addition of baryonic physics. Thus, results from dark matter-only simulations should be applicable to realistic haloes. 
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  7. null (Ed.)
  8. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT Dynamically relaxed galaxy clusters have long played an important role in galaxy cluster studies because it is thought their properties can be reconstructed more precisely and with less systematics. As relaxed clusters are desirable, there exist a plethora of criteria for classifying a galaxy cluster as relaxed. In this work, we examine 9 commonly used observational and theoretical morphological metrics extracted from $54\, 000$mock-X synthetic X-ray images of galaxy clusters taken from the IllustrisTNG, BAHAMAS, and MACSIS simulation suites. We find that the simulated criteria distributions are in reasonable agreement with the observed distributions. Many criteria distributions evolve as a function of redshift, cluster mass, numerical resolution, and subgrid physics, limiting the effectiveness of a single relaxation threshold value. All criteria are positively correlated with each other, however, the strength of the correlation is sensitive to redshift, mass, and numerical choices. Driven by the intrinsic scatter inherent to all morphological metrics and the arbitrary nature of relaxation threshold values, we find the consistency of relaxed subsets defined by the different metrics to be relatively poor. Therefore, the use of relaxed cluster subsets introduces significant selection effects that are non-trivial to resolve. 
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  9. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT We perform a suite of hydrodynamic simulations to investigate how initial density profiles of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) affect their subsequent evolution. We find that the star formation duration and integrated star formation efficiency of the whole clouds are not sensitive to the choice of different profiles but are mainly controlled by the interplay between gravitational collapse and stellar feedback. Despite this similarity, GMCs with different profiles show dramatically different modes of star formation. For shallower profiles, GMCs first fragment into many self-gravitation cores and form subclusters that distributed throughout the entire clouds. These subclusters are later assembled ‘hierarchically’ to central clusters. In contrast, for steeper profiles, a massive cluster is quickly formed at the centre of the cloud and then gradually grows its mass via gas accretion. Consequently, central clusters that emerged from clouds with shallower profiles are less massive and show less rotation than those with the steeper profiles. This is because (1) a significant fraction of mass and angular momentum in shallower profiles is stored in the orbital motion of the subclusters that are not able to merge into the central clusters, and (2) frequent hierarchical mergers in the shallower profiles lead to further losses of mass and angular momentum via violent relaxation and tidal disruption. Encouragingly, the degree of cluster rotations in steeper profiles is consistent with recent observations of young and intermediate-age clusters. We speculate that rotating globular clusters are likely formed via an ‘accretion’ mode from centrally concentrated clouds in the early Universe. 
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  10. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT We present a model for the interaction between dust and radiation fields in the radiation hydrodynamic code arepo-rt, which solves the moment-based radiative transfer equations on an unstructured moving mesh. Dust is directly treated using live simulation particles, each of which represent a population of grains that are coupled to hydrodynamic motion through a drag force. We introduce methods to calculate radiation pressure on and photon absorption by dust grains. By including a direct treatment of dust, we are able to calculate dust opacities and update radiation fields self-consistently based on the local dust distribution. This hybrid scheme coupling dust particles to an unstructured mesh for radiation is validated using several test problems with known analytic solutions, including dust driven via spherically symmetric flux from a constant luminosity source and photon absorption from radiation incident on a thin layer of dust. Our methods are compatible with the multifrequency scheme in arepo-rt, which treats UV, optical photons as single scattered and IR photons as multi scattered. At IR wavelengths, we model heating of and thermal emission from dust. Dust and gas are not assumed to be in local thermodynamic equilibrium but transfer energy through collisional exchange. We estimate dust temperatures by balancing these dust-radiation and dust-gas energy exchange rates. This framework for coupling dust and radiation can be applied in future radiation hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy formation. 
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