James W. Trayford

The EAGLE project: simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments

We introduce the Virgo Consortiums EAGLE project, a suite of hydrodynamical simulations that follow the formation of galaxies and black holes in representative volumes. We discuss the limitations of such simulations in light of their finite resolution and poorly constrained subgrid physics, and how these affect their predictive power. One major improvement is our treatment of feedback from massive stars and AGN in which thermal energy is injected into the gas without the need to turn off cooling or hydrodynamical forces, allowing winds to develop without predetermined speed or mass loading factors. Because the feedback efficiencies cannot be predicted from first principles, we calibrate them to the z~0 galaxy stellar mass function and the amplitude of the galaxy-central black hole mass relation, also taking galaxy sizes into account. The observed galaxy mass function is reproduced to ≲0.2 dex over the full mass range, 108<M∗/M⊙≲1011, a level of agreement close to that attained by semi-analytic models, and unprecedented for hydrodynamical simulations. We compare our results to a representative set of low-redshift observables not considered in the calibration, and find good agreement with the observed galaxy specific star formation rates, passive fractions, Tully-Fisher relation, total stellar luminosities of galaxy clusters, and column density distributions of intergalactic CIV and OVI. While the mass-metallicity relations for gas and stars are consistent with observations for M∗≳109M⊙, they are insufficiently steep at lower masses. The gas fractions and temperatures are too high for clusters of galaxies, but for groups these discrepancies can be resolved by adopting a higher heating temperature in the subgrid prescription for AGN feedback. EAGLE constitutes a valuable new resource for studies of galaxy formation.

Colours and luminosities of z = 0.1 galaxies in the eagle simulation

We calculate the colours and luminosities of redshift z = 0.1 galaxies from the EAGLE simulation suite using the GALAXEV population synthesis models. We take into account obscuration by dust in birth clouds and diffuse ISM using a two-component screen model, following the prescription of Charlot and Fall. We compare models in which the dust optical depth is constant to models where it depends on gas metallicity, gas fraction and orientation. The colours of EAGLE galaxies for the more sophisticated models are in broad agreement with those of observed galaxies. In particular, EAGLE produces a red sequence of passive galaxies and a blue cloud of star forming galaxies, with approximately the correct fraction of galaxies in each population and with g-r colours within 0.1 magnitudes of those observed. Luminosity functions from UV to NIR wavelengths differ from observations at a level comparable to systematic shifts resulting from a choice between Petrosian and Kron photometric apertures. Despite the generally good agreement there are clear discrepancies with observations. The blue cloud of EAGLE galaxies extends to somewhat higher luminosities than in the data, consistent with the modest underestimate of the passive fraction in massive EAGLE galaxies. There is also a moderate excess of bright blue galaxies compared to observations. The overall level of agreement with the observed colour distribution suggests that EAGLE galaxies at z = 0.1 have ages, metallicities and levels of obscuration that are comparable to those of observed galaxies.

The eagle simulations of galaxy formation: Public release of halo and galaxy catalogues

We present the public data release of halo and galaxy catalogues extracted from the EAGLE suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation. These simulations were performed with an enhanced version of the GADGET code that includes a modified hydrodynamics solver, time-step limiter and subgrid treatments of baryonic physics, such as stellar mass loss, element-by-element radiative cooling, star formation and feedback from star formation and black hole accretion. The simulation suite includes runs performed in volumes ranging from 25 to 100 comoving megaparsecs per side, with numerical resolution chosen to marginally resolve the Jeans mass of the gas at the star formation threshold. The free parameters of the subgrid models for feedback are calibrated to the redshift z=0 galaxy stellar mass function, galaxy sizes and black hole mass - stellar mass relation. The simulations have been shown to match a wide range of observations for present-day and higher-redshift galaxies. The raw particle data have been used to link galaxies across redshifts by creating merger trees. The indexing of the tree produces a simple way to connect a galaxy at one redshift to its progenitors at higher redshift and to identify its descendants at lower redshift. In this paper we present a relational database which we are making available for general use. A large number of properties of haloes and galaxies and their merger trees are stored in the database, including stellar masses, star formation rates, metallicities, photometric measurements and mock gri images. Complex queries can be created to explore the evolution of more than 10^5 galaxies, examples of which are provided in appendix. (abridged)

Size evolution of normal and compact galaxies in the EAGLE simulation

We present the evolution of galaxy sizes, from redshift 2 to 0, for actively star forming and passive galaxies in the cosmological hydrodynamical 1003 cMpc3 simulation of the EAGLE project. We find that the sizes increase with stellar mass, but that the relation weakens with increasing redshift. Separating galaxies by their star formation activity, we find that passive galaxies are typically smaller than active galaxies at a fixed stellar mass. These trends are consistent with those found in observations and the level of agreement between the predicted and observed size–mass relations is of the order of 0.1 dex for z < 1 and 0.2–0.3 dex from redshift 1 to 2. We use the simulation to compare the evolution of individual galaxies with that of the population as a whole. While the evolution of the size–stellar mass relation for active galaxies provides a good proxy for the evolution of individual galaxies, the evolution of individual passive galaxies is not well represented by the observed size–mass relation due to the evolving number density of passive galaxies. Observations of z ∼ 2 galaxies have revealed an abundance of massive red compact galaxies, which depletes below z ∼ 1. We find that a similar population forms naturally in the simulation. Comparing these galaxies with their z = 0 descendants, we find that all compact galaxies grow in size due to the high-redshift stars migrating outwards. Approximately 60 per cent of the compact galaxies increase in size further due to renewed star formation and/or mergers.

The distribution of atomic hydrogen in eagle galaxies: morphologies, profiles, and H i holes

We compare the mass and internal distribution of atomic hydrogen (H I) in 2200 present-day central galaxies with Mstar > 1010  M⊙ from the 100 Mpc EAGLE ‘Reference’ simulation to observational data. Atomic hydrogen fractions are corrected for self-shielding using a fitting formula from radiative transfer simulations and for the presence of molecular hydrogen using an empirical or a theoretical prescription from the literature. The resulting neutral hydrogen fractions, , agree with observations to better than 0.1 dex for galaxies with Mstar between 1010 and 1011  M⊙. Our fiducial, empirical H2 model based on gas pressure results in galactic H I mass fractions, [Math Processing Error], that agree with observations from the GASS survey to better than 0.3 dex, but the alternative theoretical H2 formula from high-resolution simulations leads to a negative offset in [Math Processing Error] of up to 0.5 dex. Visual inspection of mock H I images reveals that most H I discs in simulated H I-rich galaxies are vertically disturbed, plausibly due to recent accretion events. Many galaxies (up to 80 per cent) contain spuriously large H I holes, which are likely formed as a consequence of the feedback implementation in EAGLE. The H I mass–size relation of all simulated galaxies is close to (but 16 per cent steeper than) observed, and when only galaxies without large holes in the H I disc are considered, the agreement becomes excellent (better than 0.1 dex). The presence of large H I holes also makes the radial H I surface density profiles somewhat too low in the centre, at [Math Processing Error] (by a factor of ≲ 2 compared to data from the Bluedisk survey). In the outer region ([Math Processing Error]), the simulated profiles agree quantitatively with observations. Scaled by H I size, the simulated profiles of H I-rich ([Math Processing Error]) and control galaxies ([Math Processing Error]) follow each other closely, as observed.

The link between the assembly of the inner dark matter halo and the angular momentum evolution of galaxies in the EAGLE simulation

We explore the co-evolution of the specific angular momentum of dark matter haloes and the cold baryons that comprise the galaxies within. We study over 2000 galaxies within the reference cosmological hydrodynamical simulation of the ‘Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments’ (EAGLE) project. We employ a methodology within which the evolutionary history of a system is specified by the time-evolving properties of the Lagrangian particles that define it at z=0.We find a strong correlation between the evolution of the specific angular momentum of today’s stars (cold gas) and that of the inner (whole) dark matter halo they are associated with. This link is particularly strong for the stars formed before the epoch of maximum expansion and subsequent collapse of the central dark matter halo (turnaround). Spheroids are assembled primarily from stars formed prior to turnaround, and suffer a net loss of angular momentum associated with the strong merging activity during the assembly of the inner dark matter halo. Stellar discs retain their specific angular momentum since they are comprised of stars formed mainly after turnaround, from gas that mostly preserves the high specific angular momentum it acquired by tidal torques during the linear growth of the halo. Since the specific angular momentum loss of the stars is tied to the galaxy’s morphology today, it may be possible to use our results to predict, statistically, the maximum loss of specific angular momentum of the inner part of a halo given the morphology of the galaxy it hosts.

Far-infrared and dust properties of present-day galaxies in the EAGLE simulations

The Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments (EAGLE) cosmological simulations reproduce the observed galaxy stellar mass function and many galaxy properties. In this work, we study the dust-related properties of present-day EAGLE galaxies through mock observations in the far-infrared and submm wavelength ranges obtained with the 3D dust radiative transfer code SKIRT. To prepare an EAGLE galaxy for radiative transfer processing, we derive a diffuse dust distribution from the gas particles and we re-sample the star-forming gas particles and the youngest star particles into star-forming regions that are assigned dedicated emission templates. We select a set of redshift-zero EAGLE galaxies that matches the K-band luminosity distribution of the galaxies in the Herschel Reference Survey (HRS), a volumelimited sample of about 300 normal galaxies in the Local Universe. We find overall agreement of the EAGLE dust scaling relations with those observed in the HRS, such as the dust-tostellar mass ratio versus stellar mass and versus NUV-r colour relations. A discrepancy in the f(250)/f(350) versus f(350)/f(500) submm colour-colour relation implies that part of the simulated dust is insufficiently heated, likely because of limitations in our sub-grid model for star-forming regions. We also investigate the effect of adjusting the metal-to-dust ratio and the covering factor of the photodissociation regions surrounding the star-forming cores. We are able to constrain the important dust-related parameters in our method, informing the calculation of dust attenuation for EAGLE galaxies in the UV and optical domain.

Quantifying the impact of mergers on the angular momentum of simulated galaxies

We use EAGLE to quantify the effect galaxy mergers have on the stellar specific angular momentum of galaxies, jstars.We split mergers into: dry (gas-poor)/wet (gas-rich), major/minor, and different spin alignments and orbital parameters. Wet (dry) mergers have an average neutral gas-to-stellar mass ratio of 1.1 (0.02), while major (minor) mergers are those with stellar mass ratios > 0.3 (0.1 − 0.3). We correlate the positions of galaxies in the jstars-stellar mass plane at z = 0 with their merger history, and find that galaxies of low spins suffered dry mergers, while galaxies of normal/high spins suffered predominantly wet mergers, if any. The radial jstars profiles of galaxies that went through dry mergers are deficient by � 0.3 dex at r . 10 r50 (with r50 being the half-stellar mass radius), compared to galaxies that went through wet mergers. Studying the merger remnants reveals that dry mergers reduce jstars by � 30%, while wet mergers increase it by � 10%, on average. The latter is connected to the build-up of the bulge by newly formed stars of high rotational speed. Moving from minor to major mergers accentuates these effects. When the spin vectors of the galaxies prior to the dry merger are misaligned, jstars decreases to a greater magnitude, while in wet mergers co-rotation and high orbital angular momentum efficiently spun-up galaxies. We predict what would be the observational signatures in the jstars profiles driven by dry mergers: (i) shallow radial profiles and (ii) profiles that rise beyond � 10 r50, both of which are significantly different from spiral galaxies.

Angular momentum evolution of galaxies over the past 10 Gyr:a MUSE and KMOS dynamical survey of 400 star-forming galaxies from z=0.3 to 1.7

We present a MUSE and KMOS dynamical study 405 star-forming galaxies at redshift z=0.28-1.65 (median redshift z=0.84). Our sample are representative of star-forming, main-sequence galaxies, with star-formation rates of SFR=0.1-30Mo/yr and stellar masses M=10^8-10^11Mo. For 49+/-4% of our sample, the dynamics suggest rotational support, 24+/-3% are unresolved systems and 5+/-2% appear to be early-stage major mergers with components on 8-30kpc scales. The remaining 22+/-5% appear to be dynamically complex, irregular (or face-on systems). For galaxies whose dynamics suggest rotational support, we derive inclination corrected rotational velocities and show these systems lie on a similar scaling between stellar mass and specific angular momentum as local spirals with j*=J/M*\propto M^(2/3) but with a redshift evolution that scales as j*\propto M^{2/3}(1+z)^(-1). We identify a correlation between specific angular momentum and disk stability such that galaxies with the highest specific angular momentum, log(j*/M^(2/3))>2.5, are the most stable, with Toomre Q=1.10+/-0.18, compared to Q=0.53+/-0.22 for galaxies with log(j*/M^(2/3))

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 α 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 (ISM). The mock H α luminosity function agrees reasonably well with the data, and we quantify the extent to which dust obscuration affects observed H α fluxes. The distribution of D4000 break values is bimodal, as observed. In the simulation, 20 per cent 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 1010 M 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 data base.