An empirical model to form and evolve galaxies in dark matter halos

Abstract

Based on the star formation histories of galaxies in halos with different masses, we develop an empirical model to grow galaxies in dark matter halos. This model has very few ingredients, any of which can be associated with observational data and thus be efficiently assessed. By applying this model to a very high resolution cosmological N-body simulation, we predict a number of galaxy properties that are a very good match to relevant observational data. Namely, for both centrals and satellites, the galaxy stellar mass functions up to redshift z ≃ 4 and the conditional stellar mass functions in the local universe are in good agreement with observations. In addition, the two point correlation function is well predicted in the different stellar mass ranges explored by our model. Furthermore, after applying stellar population synthesis models to our stellar composition as a function of redshift, we find that the luminosity functions in the 0.1 u, 0.1 g, 0.1 r, 0.1 i and 0.1 z bands agree quite well with the SDSS observational results down to an absolute magnitude at about -17.0. The SDSS conditional luminosity function itself is predicted well. Finally, the cold gas is derived from the star formation rate to predict the HI gas mass within each mock galaxy. We find a remarkably good match to observed HI-to-stellar mass ratios. These features ensure that such galaxy/gas catalogs can be used to generate reliable mock redshift surveys.