EAGLE Hydrodynamical Simulation Research Articles

Clustering of binary black hole mergers: a detailed analysis of the eagle + mobse simulation

ABSTRACT We perform a detailed study of the cosmological bias of gravitational wave (GW) events produced by stellar binary black hole mergers (BBHM). We start from a BBHM distribution modelled inside the eagle hydrodynamical simulation using the population synthesis code mobse. We then compare our findings with predictions from different halo occupation distribution (HOD) prescriptions and find overall agreement, provided that the modelled properties of host galaxies and haloes in the semi-analytical treatment match those in the simulations. By highlighting the sources of these discrepancies, we provide the stepping stone to build future more robust models that prevent the shortcoming of both simulation-based and analytical models. Finally, we train a neural network to build a simulation-based HOD and perform feature importance analysis to gain intuition on which host halo/galaxy parameters are the most relevant in determining the actual distribution and power spectrum of BBHM. We find that the distribution of BBHM in a galaxy does not only depend on its size, star formation rate and metallicity, but also by its kinetic state, namely its total energy and velocity dispersion.

Galaxy 3D shape recovery using mixture density network

Abstract Since the turn of the century, astronomers have been exploiting the rich information afforded by combining stellar kinematic maps and imaging in an attempt to recover the intrinsic, three-dimensional (3D) shape of a galaxy. A common intrinsic shape recovery method relies on an expected monotonic relationship between the intrinsic misalignment of the kinematic and morphological axes and the triaxiality parameter. Recent studies have, however, cast doubt about underlying assumptions relating shape and intrinsic kinematic misalignment. In this work, we aim to recover the 3D shape of individual galaxies using their projected stellar kinematic and flux distributions using a supervised machine learning approach with mixture density network (MDN). Using a mock dataset of the EAGLE hydrodynamical cosmological simulation, we train the MDN model for a carefully selected set of common kinematic and photometric parameters. Compared to previous methods, we demonstrate potential improvements achieved with the MDN model to retrieve the 3D galaxy shape along with the uncertainties, especially for prolate and triaxial systems. We make specific recommendations for recovering galaxy intrinsic shapes relevant for current and future integral field spectroscopic galaxy surveys.

Ram Pressure Stripping in the EAGLE Simulation

Ram pressure stripping of satellite galaxies is thought to be a ubiquitous process in galaxy clusters, and a growing number of observations reveal satellites at different stages of stripping. However, in order to determine the fate of any individual galaxy, we turn to predictions from either simulations or analytic models. It is not well determined whether simulations and analytic models agree in their predictions, nor the causes of disagreement. Here we investigate ram pressure stripping in the reference EAGLE hydrodynamical cosmological simulation, and compare the results to predictions from analytic models. We track the evolution of galaxies with stellar mass M * > 109 M ⊙ and initial bound gas mass M gas > 109 M ⊙ that fall into galaxy clusters (M 200c > 1014 M ⊙) between z = 0.27 and z = 0. We divide each galaxy into its neutral gas disk and hot ionized gas halo and compare the evolution of the stripped gas fraction in the simulation to that predicted by analytic formulations for the two gas phases, as well as to a toy model that computes the motions of gas particles under the combined effects of gravity and a spatially uniform ram pressure. We find that the analytic models generally underpredict the stripping rate of neutral gas and overpredict that of ionized gas, with significant scatter between the model and simulation stripping timescales. This is due to opposing physical effects: the enhancement of ram pressure stripping by stellar feedback, and the suppression of stripping by the compaction of galactic gas.

The relationship between cluster environment and molecular gas content of star-forming galaxies in the eagle simulation

ABSTRACT We employ the eagle hydrodynamical simulation to uncover the relationship between cluster environment and H2 content of star-forming galaxies at redshifts spanning 0 ≤ z ≤ 1. To do so, we divide the star-forming sample into those that are bound to clusters and those that are not. We find that, at any given redshift, the galaxies in clusters generally have less H2 than their non-cluster counterparts with the same stellar mass (corresponding to an offset of ≲0.5 dex), but this offset varies with stellar mass and is virtually absent at M⋆ ≲ 109.3 M⊙. The H2 deficit in star-forming cluster galaxies can be traced back to a decline in their H2 content that commenced after first infall into a cluster, which occurred later than a typical cluster galaxy. Evolution of the full cluster population after infall is generally consistent with ‘slow-then-rapid’ quenching, but galaxies with M⋆ ≲ 109.5 M⊙ exhibit rapid quenching. Unlike most cluster galaxies, star-forming ones were not pre-processed in groups prior to being accreted by clusters. For both of these cluster samples, the star formation efficiency remained oblivious to the infall. We track the particles associated with star-forming cluster galaxies and attribute the drop in H2 mass after infall to poor replenishment, depletion due to star formation, and stripping of H2 in cluster environments. These results provide predictions for future surveys, along with support and theoretical insights for existing molecular gas observations that suggest there is less H2 in cluster galaxies.

Determining satellite infall times using machine learning

ABSTRACT A key unknown of the Milky Way (MW) satellites is their orbital history, and, in particular, the time they were accreted onto the MW system since it marks the point where they experience a multitude of environmental processes. We present a new methodology for determining infall times, namely using a neural network (NN) algorithm. The NN is trained on MW-analogues in the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation to predict if a dwarf galaxy is at first infall or a backsplash galaxy and to infer its infall time. The resulting NN predicts with 85-per cent accuracy if a galaxy currently outside the virial radius is a backsplash satellite and determines the infall times with a typical 68-per cent confidence interval of 4.4 Gyr. Applying the NN to MW dwarfs with Gaia EDR3 proper motions, we find that all of the dwarfs within 300 kpc had been inside the Galactic halo. The overall MW satellite accretion rate agrees well with the theoretical prediction except for late times when the MW shows a second peak at a lookback time of 1.5 Gyr corresponding to the infall of the LMC and its satellites. We also find that the quenching times for ultrafaint dwarfs show no significant correlation with infall time and thus supporting the hypothesis that they were quenched during reionization. In contrast, dwarfs with stellar masses above 105 M⊙ are found to be consistent with environmental quenching inside the Galactic halo, with star-formation ceasing on average at $0.5^{+0.9}_{-1.2}$ Gyr after infall.

The evolution of barred galaxies in the EAGLE simulations

ABSTRACT We study the morphologies of 3964 galaxies and their progenitors with M⋆ > 1010M⊙ in the reference eagle hydrodynamical simulation from redshifts z = 1 to 0, concentrating on the redshift evolution of the bar fraction. We apply two convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to classify 35 082 synthetic g-band images across 10 snapshots in redshift. We identify galaxies as either barred or unbarred, while also classifying each sample into one of four morphological types: elliptical (E), lenticular (S0), spiral (Sp), and irregular/miscellaneous (IrrM). We find that the bar fraction is roughly constant between z = 0.0 and 0.5 (32–33 per cent), before exhibiting a general decline to 26 per cent out to z = 1. The bar fraction is highest in spiral galaxies, from 49 per cent at z = 0 to 39 per cent at z = 1. The bar fraction in S0s is lower, ranging from 22 to 18 per cent, with similar values for the miscellaneous category. Under 5 per cent of ellipticals were classified as barred. We find that the bar fraction is highest in low-mass galaxies (M⋆ ≤ 1010.5M⊙). Through tracking the evolution of galaxies across each snapshot, we find that some barred galaxies undergo episodes of bar creation, destruction and regeneration, with a mean bar lifetime of 2.24 Gyr. We further find that incidences of bar destruction are more commonly linked to major merging, while minor merging and accretion is linked to both bar creation and destruction.

An EAGLE view of the missing baryons

Context. A significant fraction of the predicted baryons remain undetected in the local Universe. We adopted the common assumption that a large fraction of the missing baryons correspond to the hot (log T(K) = 5.5–7) phase of the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). We base our missing baryons search on the scenario whereby the WHIM has been heated up via accretion shocks and galactic outflows, and it is concentrated towards the filaments of the cosmic web. Aims. Our aim is to improve the observational search for the poorly detected hot WHIM. Methods. We detected the filamentary structure within the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation by applying the Bisous formalism to the galaxy distribution. To test the reliability of our results, we used the MMF/NEXUS+ classification of the large-scale environment of the dark matter component in EAGLE. We then studied the spatio-thermal distribution of the hot baryons within the extracted filaments. Results. While the filaments occupy only ≈5% of the full simulation volume, the diffuse hot intergalactic medium in filaments amounts to ≈23%−25% of the total baryon budget, or ≈79%−87% of all the hot WHIM. The optimal filament sample, with a missing baryon mass fraction of ≈82%, is obtained by selecting Bisous filaments with a high galaxy luminosity density. For these filaments, we derived analytic formulae for the radial gas density and temperature profiles, consistent with recent Planck Sunyaev-Zeldovich and cosmic microwave background lensing observations within the central r ≈ 1 Mpc. Conclusions. Results from the EAGLE simulation suggest that the missing baryons are strongly concentrated towards the filament axes. Since the filament finding methods used here are applicable to galaxy surveys, a large fraction of the missing baryons can be localised by focusing the observational efforts on the central ∼1 Mpc regions of the filaments. To optimise the observational signal, it is beneficial to focus on the filaments with the highest galaxy luminosity densities detected in the optical data.

Massive low-surface-brightness galaxies in the eagle simulation

ABSTRACT We investigate the formation and properties of low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) with M* > 109.5 M⊙ in the eagle hydrodynamical cosmological simulation. Galaxy surface brightness depends on a combination of stellar mass surface density and mass-to-light ratio (M/L), such that low surface brightness is strongly correlated with both galaxy angular momentum (low surface density) and low specific star formation rate (high M/L). This drives most of the other observed correlations between surface brightness and galaxy properties, such as the fact that most LSBGs have low metallicity. We find that LSBGs are more isolated than high-surface-brightness galaxies (HSBGs), in agreement with observations, but that this trend is driven entirely by the fact that LSBGs are unlikely to be close-in satellites. The majority of LSBGs are consistent with a formation scenario in which the galaxies with the highest angular momentum are those that formed most of their stars recently from a gas reservoir co-rotating with a high-spin dark matter halo. However, the most extended LSBG discs in EAGLE, which are comparable in size to observed giant LSBGs, are built up via mergers. These galaxies are found to inhabit dark matter haloes with a higher spin in their inner regions (<0.1r200c), even when excluding the effects of baryonic physics by considering matching haloes from a dark-matter-only simulation with identical initial conditions.

The Iκεα model of feedback-regulated galaxy formation

Abstract We present the Iκεα model of galaxy formation, in which a galaxy’s star formation rate is set by the balance between energy injected by feedback from massive stars and energy lost by the deepening of the potential of its host dark matter halo due to cosmological accretion. Such a balance is secularly stable provided that the star formation rate increases with the pressure in the star forming gas. The Iκεα model has four parameters that together control the feedback from star formation and the cosmological accretion rate onto a halo. Iκεα reproduces accurately the star formation rate as a function of halo mass and redshift in the eagle hydrodynamical simulation, even when all four parameters are held constant. It predicts the emergence of a star forming main sequence along which the specific star formation rate depends weakly on stellar mass with an amplitude that increases rapidly with redshift. We briefly discuss the emerging mass-metallicity relation, the evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function, and an extension of the model that includes feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN). These self-regulation results are independent of the star formation law and the galaxy’s gas content. Instead, star forming galaxies are shaped by the balance between stellar feedback and cosmological accretion, with accurately accounting for energy losses associated with feedback a crucial ingredient.

The Cosmic Ballet II: spin alignment of galaxies and haloes with large-scale filaments in the EAGLE simulation

We investigate the alignment of galaxies and haloes relative to cosmic web filaments using the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation. We identify filaments by applying the NEXUS+ method to the mass distribution and the Bisous formalism to the galaxy distribution. Both web finders return similar filamentary structures that are well aligned and that contain comparable galaxy populations. EAGLE haloes have an identical spin alignment with filaments as their counterparts in dark matter only simulations: a complex mass dependent trend with low mass haloes spinning preferentially parallel to and high mass haloes spinning preferentially perpendicular to filaments. In contrast, galaxy spins do not show such a spin transition and have a propensity for perpendicular alignments at all masses, with the degree of alignment being largest for massive galaxies. This result is valid for both NEXUS+ and Bisous filaments. When splitting by morphology, we find that elliptical galaxies show a stronger orthogonal spin--filament alignment than spiral galaxies of similar mass. The same is true of their haloes, with the host haloes of elliptical galaxies having a larger degree of orthogonal alignment than the host haloes of spirals. Due to the misalignment between galaxy shape and spin, galaxy minor axes are oriented differently with filaments than galaxy spins. We find that the galaxies whose minor axis is perpendicular to a filament are much better aligned with their host haloes. This suggests that many of the same physical processes determine both the galaxy--filament and the galaxy--halo alignments.

The SAMI Galaxy Survey: satellite galaxies undergo little structural change during their quenching phase

At fixed stellar mass, satellite galaxies show higher passive fractions than centrals, suggesting that environment is directly quenching their star formation. Here, we investigate whether satellite quenching is accompanied by changes in stellar spin (quantified by the ratio of the rotational to dispersion velocity V/$\sigma$) for a sample of massive ($M_{*}>$10$^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$) satellite galaxies extracted from the SAMI Galaxy Survey. These systems are carefully matched to a control sample of main sequence, high $V/\sigma$ central galaxies. As expected, at fixed stellar mass and ellipticity, satellites have lower star formation rate (SFR) and spin than the control centrals. However, most of the difference is in SFR, whereas the spin decreases significantly only for satellites that have already reached the red sequence. We perform a similar analysis for galaxies in the EAGLE hydro-dynamical simulation and recover differences in both SFR and spin similar to those observed in SAMI. However, when EAGLE satellites are matched to their `true' central progenitors, the change in spin is further reduced and galaxies mainly show a decrease in SFR during their satellite phase. The difference in spin observed between satellites and centrals at $z\sim$0 is primarily due to the fact that satellites do not grow their angular momentum as fast as centrals after accreting into bigger halos, not to a reduction of $V/\sigma$ due to environmental effects. Our findings highlight the effect of progenitor bias in our understanding of galaxy transformation and they suggest that satellites undergo little structural change before and during their quenching phase.

Star-forming galaxies are predicted to lie on a fundamental plane of mass, star formation rate, and α-enhancement

ABSTRACT Observations show that star-forming galaxies reside on a tight 3D plane between mass, gas-phase metallicity, and star formation rate (SFR), which can be explained by the interplay between metal-poor gas inflows, SFR and outflows. However, different metals are released on different time-scales, which may affect the slope of this relation. Here, we use central, star-forming galaxies with Mstar = 109.0–10.5 M⊙ from the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation to examine 3D relations between mass, SFR, and chemical enrichment using absolute and relative C, N, O, and Fe abundances. We show that the scatter is smaller when gas-phase α-enhancement is used rather than metallicity. A similar plane also exists for stellar α-enhancement, implying that present-day specific SFRs are correlated with long time-scale star formation histories. Between $z$ = 0 and 1, the α-enhancement plane is even more insensitive to redshift than the plane using metallicity. However, it evolves at $z$ > 1 due to lagging iron yields. At fixed mass, galaxies with higher SFRs have star formation histories shifted towards late times, are more α-enhanced, and this α-enhancement increases with redshift as observed. These findings suggest that relations between physical properties inferred from observations may be affected by systematic variations in α-enhancements.

Reducing biases on H0 measurements using strong lensing and galaxy dynamics: results from the eagle simulation

Cosmological parameter constraints from observations of time-delay lenses are becoming increasingly precise. However, there may be significant bias and scatter in these measurements due to, among other things, the so-called mass-sheet degeneracy. To estimate these uncertainties, we analyze strong lenses from the largest EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation. We apply a mass-sheet transformation to the radial density profiles of lenses, and by selecting lenses near isothermality, we find that the bias on H0 can be reduced to 5% with an intrinsic scatter of 10%, confirming previous results performed on a different simulation data set. We further investigate whether combining lensing observables with kinematic constraints helps to minimize this bias. We do not detect any significant dependence of the bias on lens model parameters or observational properties of the galaxy, but depending on the source--lens configuration, a bias may still exist. Cross lenses provide an accurate estimate of the Hubble constant, while fold (double) lenses tend to be biased low (high). With kinematic constraints, double lenses show bias and intrinsic scatter of 6% and 10%, respectively, while quad lenses show bias and intrinsic scatter of 0.5% and 10%, respectively. For lenses with a reduced $\chi^2 > 1$, a power-law dependence of the $\chi^2$ on the lens environment (number of nearby galaxies) is seen. Lastly, we model, in greater detail, the cases of two double lenses that are significantly biased. We are able to remove the bias, suggesting that the remaining biases could also be reduced by carefully taking into account additional sources of systematic uncertainty.

The Mass Growth and Stellar Ages of Galaxies: Observations versus Simulations

Abstract Using observed stellar mass functions out to z = 5, we measure the main progenitor stellar mass growth of descendant galaxies with masses of at using an evolving cumulative number density selection. From these mass growth histories, we are able to measure the time at which half the total stellar mass of the descendant galaxy was assembled, t a , which in order of decreasing mass corresponds to redshifts of , and 0.51. We compare this to the median light-weighted stellar age t * ( and 0.37) of a sample of low-redshift SDSS galaxies (from the literature) and find the timescales are consistent with more massive galaxies forming a higher fraction of their stars ex situ compared to lower-mass descendants. We find that both t * and t a strongly correlate with mass, which is in contrast to what is found in the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation that shows a flat relationship between t a and M *. However, the semi-analytic model (SAM) of Henriques et al. is consistent with the observations in both t a and t * with M *, showing that the most recent SAMs are better able to decouple the evolution of the baryons from the dark matter in lower-mass galaxies.

Galaxy–galaxy lensing in EAGLE: comparison with data from 180 deg2 of the KiDS and GAMA surveys

We present predictions for the galaxy-galaxy lensing profile from the EAGLE hydrodynamical cosmological simulation at redshift z=0.18, in the spatial range 0.02 < R/(Mpc/h) < 2, and for five logarithmically equi-spaced stellar mass bins in the range 10.3 < $\log_{10}$(Mstar/ $M_{\odot}$) < 11.8. We compare these excess surface density profiles to the observed signal from background galaxies imaged by the Kilo Degree Survey around spectroscopically confirmed foreground galaxies from the GAMA survey. Exploiting the GAMA galaxy group catalogue, the profiles of central and satellite galaxies are computed separately for groups with at least five members to minimise contamination. EAGLE predictions are in broad agreement with the observed profiles for both central and satellite galaxies, although the signal is underestimated at R$\approx$0.5-2 Mpc/h for the highest stellar mass bins. When central and satellite galaxies are considered simultaneously, agreement is found only when the selection function of lens galaxies is taken into account in detail. Specifically, in the case of GAMA galaxies, it is crucial to account for the variation of the fraction of satellite galaxies in bins of stellar mass induced by the flux-limited nature of the survey. We report the inferred stellar-to-halo mass relation and we find good agreement with recent published results. We note how the precision of the galaxy-galaxy lensing profiles in the simulation holds the potential to constrain fine-grained aspects of the galaxy-dark matter connection.

Optical colours and spectral indices of z = 0.1 eagle galaxies with the 3D dust radiative transfer code skirt

We present mock optical images, broad-band and H$\alpha$ fluxes, and D4000 spectral indices for 30,145 galaxies from the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation at redshift $z=0.1$, modelling dust with the SKIRT Monte Carlo radiative transfer code. The modelling includes a subgrid prescription for dusty star-forming regions, with both the subgrid obscuration of these regions and the fraction of metals in diffuse interstellar dust calibrated against far-infrared fluxes of local galaxies. The predicted optical colours as a function of stellar mass agree well with observation, with the SKIRT model showing marked improvement over a simple dust screen model. The orientation dependence of attenuation is weaker than observed because EAGLE galaxies are generally puffier than real galaxies, due to the pressure floor imposed on the interstellar medium. The mock H$\alpha$ luminosity function agrees reasonably well with the data, and we quantify the extent to which dust obscuration affects observed H$\alpha$ fluxes. The distribution of D4000 break values is bimodal, as observed. In the simulation, 20$\%$ of galaxies deemed `passive' for the SKIRT model, i.e. exhibiting D4000 $> 1.8$, are classified `active' when ISM dust attenuation is not included. The fraction of galaxies with stellar mass greater than $10^{10}$ M$_\odot$ that are deemed passive is slightly smaller than observed, which is due to low levels of residual star formation in these simulated galaxies. Colour images, fluxes and spectra of EAGLE galaxies are to be made available through the public EAGLE database.

The average structural evolution of massive galaxies can be reliably estimated using cumulative galaxy number densities

Abstract Galaxy evolution can be studied observationally by linking progenitor and descendant galaxies through an evolving cumulative number density (CND) selection. This procedure can reproduce the expected evolution of the median stellar mass from abundance matching. However, models predict an increasing scatter in main progenitor masses at higher redshifts, which makes galaxy selection at the median mass unrepresentative. Consequently, there is no guarantee that the evolution of other galaxy properties deduced from this selection is reliable. Despite this concern, we show that this procedure approximately reproduces the evolution of the average stellar density profile of main progenitors of M ≈ 1011.5M⊙ galaxies, when applied to the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation. At z ≳ 3.5, the aperture masses disagree by about a factor 2, but this discrepancy disappears when we include the expected scatter in cumulative number densities. The evolution of the average density profile in EAGLE broadly agrees with observations from UltraVISTA and CANDELS, suggesting an inside-out growth history for these massive galaxies over 0 ≲ z ≲ 5. However, for z ≲ 2, the inside-out growth trend is stronger in EAGLE. We conclude that CND matching gives reasonably accurate results when applied to the evolution of the mean density profile of massive galaxies.

Galaxies in the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation and in the Durham and Munich semi-analytical models

We compare global predictions from the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulation, and two semi-analytic (SA) models of galaxy formation, L-GALAXIES and GALFORM. All three models include the key physical processes for the formation and evolution of galaxies and their parameters are calibrated against a small number of observables at $z\approx 0$. The two SA models have been applied to merger trees constructed from the EAGLE dark matter only simulation. We find that at $z\leq 2$, both the galaxy stellar mass functions for stellar masses $M_*<10^{10.5} M_{\odot}$ and the median specific star formation rates (sSFRs) in the three models agree to better than $0.4$~dex. The evolution of the sSFR predicted by the three models closely follows the mass assembly history of dark matter haloes. In both EAGLE and L-GALAXIES there are more central passive galaxies with $M_*<10^{9.5} M_{\odot}$ than in L-GALAXIES. This difference is related to galaxies that have entered and then left a larger halo and which are treated as satellites in GALFORM. In the range $0<z<1$, the slope of the evolution of the star formation rate density in EAGLE is a factor of $\approx 1.5$ steeper than for the two SA models. The median sizes for galaxies with $M_*>10^{9.5} M_{\odot}$ differ in some instances by an order of magnitude, while the stellar mass-size relation in EAGLE is a factor of $\approx 2$ tighter than for the two SA models. Our results suggest the need for a revision of how SA models treat the effect of baryonic self-gravity on the underlying dark matter. The treatment of gas flows in the models needs to be revised based on detailed comparison with observations to understand in particular the evolution of the stellar mass-metallicity relation.