ALBERT

Description: Intrinsic galaxy shape and angular momentum alignments can arise in cosmological large-scale structure due to tidal interactions or galaxy formation processes. Cosmological hydrodynamical simulations have recently come of age as a tool to study these alignments and their contamination to weak gravitational lensing. We probe the redshift and luminosity evolution of intrinsic alignments in Horizon-AGN between z = 0 and 3 for galaxies with an r -band absolute magnitude of M r ≤ –20. Alignments transition from being radial at low redshifts and high luminosities, dominated by the contribution of ellipticals, to being tangential at high redshift and low luminosities, where discs dominate the signal. This cannot be explained by the evolution of the fraction of ellipticals and discs alone: intrinsic evolution in the amplitude of alignments is necessary. The alignment amplitude of elliptical galaxies alone is smaller in amplitude by a factor of ~=2, but has similar luminosity and redshift evolution as in current observations and in the non-linear tidal alignment model at projected separations of 1 Mpc. Alignments of discs are null in projection and consistent with current low-redshift observations. The combination of the two populations yields an overall amplitude a factor of ~=4 lower than observed alignments of luminous red galaxies with a steeper luminosity dependence. The restriction on accurate galaxy shapes implies that the galaxy population in the simulation is complete only to M r ≤ –20. Higher resolution simulations will be necessary to avoid extrapolation of the intrinsic alignment predictions to the range of luminosities probed by future surveys.

Description: We use the Lyα Mass Association Scheme (LyMAS) to predict cross-correlations at z = 2.5 between dark matter haloes and transmitted flux in the Lyα forest, and compare to cross-correlations measured for quasars and damped Lyα systems (DLAs) from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) by Font-Ribera et al. We calibrate LyMAS using Horizon-AGN hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of a (100 h – 1 Mpc) 3 comoving volume. We apply this calibration to a (1 h – 1 Gpc) 3 simulation realized with 2048 3 dark matter particles. In the 100 h – 1 Mpc box, LyMAS reproduces the halo-flux correlations computed from the full hydrodynamic gas distribution very well. In the 1 h – 1 Gpc box, the amplitude of the large-scale cross-correlation tracks the halo bias b h as expected. We provide empirical fitting functions that describe our numerical results. In the transverse separation bins used for the BOSS analyses, LyMAS cross-correlation predictions follow linear theory accurately down to small scales. Fitting the BOSS measurements requires inclusion of random velocity errors; we find best-fitting rms velocity errors of 399 and $252\ \rm {km}\ \rm {s}^{-1}$ for quasars and DLAs, respectively. We infer bias-weighted mean halo masses of $M_{\rm h}/10^{12}\ h^{-1}\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot }=2.19^{+0.16}_{-0.15}$ and $0.69^{+0.16}_{-0.14}$ for the host haloes of quasars and DLAs, with ~0.2 dex systematic uncertainty associated with redshift evolution, intergalactic medium parameters, and selection of data fitting range.

Description: We present a study into the capabilities of integrated and spatially resolved integral field spectroscopy of galaxies at z  = 2–4 with the future HARMONI spectrograph for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) using the simulation pipeline, hsim . We focus particularly on the instrument's capabilities in stellar absorption line integral field spectroscopy, which will allow us to study the stellar kinematics and stellar population characteristics. Such measurements for star-forming and passive galaxies around the peak star formation era will provide a critical insight into the star formation, quenching and mass assembly history of high- z , and thus present-day galaxies. First, we perform a signal-to-noise study for passive galaxies at a range of stellar masses for z  = 2–4, assuming different light profiles; for this population, we estimate that integrated stellar absorption line spectroscopy with HARMONI will be limited to galaxies with M * 10 10.7  M . Secondly, we use hsim to perform a mock observation of a typical star-forming 10 10  M galaxy at z  = 3 generated from the high-resolution cosmological simulation nutfb . We demonstrate that the input stellar kinematics of the simulated galaxy can be accurately recovered from the integrated spectrum in a 15-h observation, using common analysis tools. Whilst spatially resolved spectroscopy is likely to remain out of reach for this particular galaxy, we estimate HARMONI's performance limits in this regime from our findings. This study demonstrates how instrument simulators such as hsim can be used to quantify instrument performance and study observational biases on kinematics retrieval; and shows the potential of making observational predictions from cosmological simulation output data.

Description: To better understand the impact of supernova (SN) explosions on the evolution of galaxies, we perform a suite of high-resolution (12 pc), zoom-in cosmological simulations of a Milky Way-like galaxy at z  = 3 with adaptive mesh refinement. We find that SN explosions can efficiently regulate star formation, leading to the stellar mass and metallicity consistent with the observed mass–metallicity relation and stellar mass–halo mass relation at z  ~ 3. This is achieved by making three important changes to the classical feedback scheme: (i) the different phases of SN blast waves are modelled directly by injecting radial momentum expected at each stage, (ii) the realistic time delay of SNe is required to disperse very dense gas before a runaway collapse sets in, and (iii) a non-uniform density distribution of the interstellar medium (ISM) is taken into account below the computational grid scale for the cell in which an SN explodes. The simulated galaxy with the SN feedback model shows strong outflows, which carry approximately 10 times larger mass than star formation rate, as well as smoothly rising circular velocity. Although the metallicity of the outflow depends sensitively on the feedback model used, we find that the accretion rate and metallicity of the cold flow around the virial radius is impervious to SN feedback. Our results suggest that understanding the structure of the turbulent ISM may be crucial to assess the role of SN and other feedback processes in galaxy formation theory.

Description: We study how outflows of gas launched from a central galaxy undergoing repeated starbursts propagate through the circum-galactic medium (CGM), using the simulation code ramses . We assume that the outflow from the disc can be modelled as a rapidly moving bubble of hot gas at ~1 kpc above disc, then ask what happens as it moves out further into the halo around the galaxy on ~100 kpc scales. To do this, we run 60 two-dimensional simulations scanning over parameters of the outflow. Each of these is repeated with and without radiative cooling, assuming a primordial gas composition to give a lower bound on the importance of cooling. In a large fraction of radiative-cooling cases we are able to form rapidly outflowing cool gas from in situ cooling of the flow. We show that the amount of cool gas formed depends strongly on the ‘burstiness’ of energy injection; sharper, stronger bursts typically lead to a larger fraction of cool gas forming in the outflow. The abundance ratio of ions in the CGM may therefore change in response to the detailed historical pattern of star formation. For instance, outflows generated by star formation with short, intense bursts contain up to 60 per cent of their gas mass at temperatures 〈5  x  10 4 K; for near-continuous star formation, the figure is 5 per cent. Further study of cosmological simulations, and of idealized simulations with e.g. metal-cooling, magnetic fields and/or thermal conduction, will help to understand the precise signature of bursty outflows on observed ion abundances.

Description: The intrinsic alignments of galaxies are recognized as a contaminant to weak gravitational lensing measurements. In this work, we study the alignment of galaxy shapes and spins at low redshift ( z ~ 0.5) in Horizon-AGN, an adaptive-mesh-refinement hydrodynamical cosmological simulation box of 100 h – 1 Mpc a side with AGN feedback implementation. We find that spheroidal galaxies in the simulation show a tendency to be aligned radially towards overdensities in the dark matter density field and other spheroidals. This trend is in agreement with observations, but the amplitude of the signal depends strongly on how shapes are measured and how galaxies are selected in the simulation. Disc galaxies show a tendency to be oriented tangentially around spheroidals in three dimensions. While this signal seems suppressed in projection, this does not guarantee that disc alignments can be safely ignored in future weak lensing surveys. The shape alignments of luminous galaxies in Horizon-AGN are in agreement with observations and other simulation works, but we find less alignment for lower luminosity populations. We also characterize the systematics of galaxy shapes in the simulation and show that they can be safely neglected when measuring the correlation of the density field and galaxy ellipticities.

Description: We analyse the demographics of black holes (BHs) in the large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical simulation Horizon-AGN. This simulation statistically models how much gas is accreted on to BHs, traces the energy deposited into their environment and, consequently, the back-reaction of the ambient medium on BH growth. The synthetic BHs reproduce a variety of observational constraints such as the redshift evolution of the BH mass density and the mass function. Strong self-regulation via AGN feedback, weak supernova feedback, and unresolved internal processes result in a tight BH–galaxy mass correlation. Starting at z ~ 2, tidal stripping creates a small population of BHs over-massive with respect to the halo. The fraction of galaxies hosting a central BH or an AGN increases with stellar mass. The AGN fraction agrees better with multi-wavelength studies, than single-wavelength ones, unless obscuration is taken into account. The most massive haloes present BH multiplicity, with additional BHs gained by ongoing or past mergers. In some cases, both a central and an off-centre AGN shine concurrently, producing a dual AGN. This dual AGN population dwindles with decreasing redshift, as found in observations. Specific accretion rate and Eddington ratio distributions are in good agreement with observational estimates. The BH population is dominated in turn by fast, slow, and very slow accretors, with transitions occurring at z = 3 and z = 2, respectively.

Description: An Adaptive Mesh Refinement cosmological resimulation is analysed in order to test whether filamentary flows of cold gas are responsible for the build-up of angular momentum within a Milky Way-like disc at z  ≥ 3. A set of algorithms is presented that takes advantage of the high spatial resolution of the simulation (12 pc) to identify: (i) the central gas disc and its plane of orientation; (ii) the complex individual filament trajectories that connect to the disc; and (iii) the infalling satellites. The results show that two filaments at z   5.5, which later merge to form a single filament at z   4, drive the angular momentum and mass budget of the disc throughout its evolution, whereas luminous satellite mergers make negligible fractional contributions. Combined with the ubiquitous presence of such filaments in all large-scale cosmological simulations that include hydrodynamics, we argue that these findings provide strong quantitative evidence that the growth of a large fraction of the thin discs in haloes with masses below 10 12  M , which host the vast majority of galaxies, is supported via inflowing streams of cold gas at intermediate and high redshifts.

Description: Galaxies and the dark matter haloes that host them are not spherically symmetric, yet spherical symmetry is a helpful simplifying approximation for idealized calculations and analysis of observational data. The assumption leads to an exact conservation of angular momentum for every particle, making the dynamics unrealistic. But how much does that inaccuracy matter in practice for analyses of stellar distribution functions, collisionless relaxation, or dark matter core-creation? We provide a general answer to this question for a wide class of aspherical systems; specifically, we consider distribution functions that are ‘maximally stable’, i.e. that do not evolve at first order when external potentials (which arise from baryons, large-scale tidal fields or infalling substructure) are applied. We show that a spherically symmetric analysis of such systems gives rise to the false conclusion that the density of particles in phase space is ergodic (a function of energy alone). Using this idea we are able to demonstrate that: (a) observational analyses that falsely assume spherical symmetry are made more accurate by imposing a strong prior preference for near-isotropic velocity dispersions in the centre of spheroids; (b) numerical simulations that use an idealized spherically symmetric setup can yield misleading results and should be avoided where possible; and (c) triaxial dark matter haloes (formed in collisionless cosmological simulations) nearly attain our maximally stable limit, but their evolution freezes out before reaching it.

Description: The growth of a supermassive black hole (BH) is determined by how much gas the host galaxy is able to feed it, which in turn is controlled by the cosmic environment, through galaxy mergers and accretion of cosmic flows that time how galaxies obtain their gas, and also by internal processes in the galaxy, such as star formation and feedback from stars and the BH itself. In this paper, we study the growth of a 10 12 M halo at z  = 2, which is the progenitor of a group of galaxies at z  = 0, and of its central BH by means of a high-resolution zoomed cosmological simulation, the Seth simulation. We study the evolution of the BH driven by the accretion of cold gas in the galaxy, and explore the efficiency of the feedback from supernovae (SNe). For a relatively inefficient energy input from SNe, the BH grows at the Eddington rate from early times, and reaches self-regulation once it is massive enough. We find that at early cosmic times z  〉 3.5, efficient feedback from SNe forbids the formation of a settled disc as well as the accumulation of dense cold gas in the vicinity of the BH and starves the central compact object. As the galaxy and its halo accumulate mass, they become able to confine the nuclear inflows provided by major mergers and the BH grows at a sustained near-to-Eddington accretion rate. We argue that this mechanism should be ubiquitous amongst low-mass galaxies, corresponding to galaxies with a stellar mass below 10 9 M in our simulations.