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We construct a map of deflections of ultra-high energy cosmic rays by extragalactic magnetic fields using a magneto-hydrodynamical simulation of cosmic structure formation that realistically reproduces the positions of known galaxy clusters in the Local Universe. Large deflection angles occur in cluster regions, which however cover only an insignificant fraction of the sky. More typical deflections of order $\lsim 1^\circ$ are caused by crossings of filaments. For protons with energies $E \geq 4 \times 10^{19} {\rm eV}$, deflections do not exceed a few degrees over most of the sky up to a propagation distance of 500 Mpc. Given that the field strength of our simulated intergalactic magnetic field forms a plausible upper limit, we conclude that charged particle astronomy is in principle possible., Replaced with the version accepted for publication in JETP Lett. Additional graphical material can be found here: http://dipastro.pd.astro.it/~cosmo/LocalMHD

We describe hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation in a Lambda cold dark matter (CDM) cosmology performed using a subresolution model for star formation and feedback in a multiphase interstellar medium (ISM). In particular, we demonstrate the formation of a well-resolved disk galaxy. The surface brightness profile of the galaxy is exponential, with a B-band central surface brightness of 21.0 mag arcsec^-2 and a scale-length of R_d = 2.0 h^-1 kpc. We find no evidence for a significant bulge component. The simulated galaxy falls within the I-band Tully-Fisher relation, with an absolute magnitude of I = -21.2 and a peak stellar rotation velocity of V_rot=121.3 km s^-1. While the total specific angular momentum of the stars in the galaxy agrees with observations, the angular momentum in the inner regions appears to be low by a factor of ~2. The star formation rate of the galaxy peaks at ~7 M_sun yr^-1 between redshifts z=2-4, with the mean stellar age decreasing from \~10 Gyrs in the outer regions of the disk to ~7.5 Gyrs in the center, indicating that the disk did not simply form inside-out. The stars exhibit a metallicity gradient from 0.7 Z_sun at the edge of the disk to 1.3 Z_sun in the center. Using a suite of idealized galaxy formation simulations with different models for the ISM, we show that the effective pressure support provided by star formation and feedback in our multiphase model is instrumental in allowing the formation of large, stable disk galaxies. If ISM gas is instead modeled with an isothermal equation of state, or if star formation is suppressed entirely, growing gaseous disks quickly violate the Toomre stability criterion and undergo catastrophic fragmentation.

We study the photometric properties of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) formed by redshift z=3 in a set of large cosmological smoothed-particle hydrodynamics simulations of the Lambda cold dark matter (CDM) model. Our numerical simulations include radiative cooling and heating with a uniform UV background, star formation, supernova feedback, and a phenomenological model for galactic winds. Analysing a series of simulations of varying boxsize and particle number allows us to isolate the impact of numerical resolution on our results. We compute spectra of simulated galaxies using a population synthesis model, and derive colours and luminosity functions of galaxies at z=3 after applying local dust extinction and absorption by the intergalactic medium (IGM). We find that the simulated galaxies have U-G and G-R colours consistent with observations, provided that intervening absorption by the IGM is applied. The observed properties of LBGs, including their number density, colours, and luminosity functions, can be explained if LBGs are identified with the most massive galaxies at z=3, having typical stellar mass of M_{star} ~ 1e10 Msun/h, a conclusion broadly consistent with earlier studies based on hydrodynamic simulations of the Lamda CDM model. We also find that most simulated LBGs were continuously forming stars at a high rate for more than one Gyr up until z=3, but with numerous starbursts lying on top of the continuous component. Interestingly, our simulations suggest that more than 50% of the total stellar mass and star formation rate in the Universe are accounted for by galaxies that are not detected in the current generation of LBG surveys., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, Error in AB magnitude calculation corrected. Figures in the original published version in MNRAS contain error except Fig.5 & 6, but the basic conclusions are unchanged. Higher resolution version available at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~knagamine/lbg.ps.gz

We present results on the X-ray properties of clusters and groups of galaxies, extracted from a large hydrodynamical simulation. We used the GADGET code to simulate a LambdaCDM model within a box of 192 Mpc/h on a side, with 480^3 dark matter particles and as many gas particles. The simulation includes radiative cooling, star formation and supernova feedback. The simulated M-T relation is consistent with observations once we mimic the procedure for mass estimates applied to real clusters. Also, with the adopted choices of Omega_m=0.3 and sigma_8=0.8 the resulting XTF agrees with observational determinations. The L-T relation also agrees with observations for clusters with T>2 keV, with no change of slope at the scale of groups. The entropy in central cluster regions is higher than predicted by gravitational heating alone, the excess being almost the same for clusters and groups. The simulated clusters appear to have suffered some overcooling, with f*~0.2, thus about twice as large as the value observed. Interestingly, temperature profiles are found to steadily increase toward cluster centers. They decrease in the outer regions, much like observational data do at r>0.2r_vir, while not showing an isothermal regime followed by a smooth temperature decline in the innermost regions., 20 pages, 14 figures, to appear in MNRAS

We study the distribution of the star formation rate and metallicity of damped Lyman-alpha absorbers using cosmological SPH simulations of the Lambda cold dark matter model in the redshift range z=0-4.5. Our approach includes a phenomenological model of galactic wind. We find that there is a positive correlation between the projected stellar mass density and the neutral hydrogen column density (NHI) of DLAs for high NHI systems, and that there is a good correspondence in the spatial distribution of stars and DLAs in the simulations. The evolution of typical star-to-gas mass ratios in DLAs can be characterised by an increase from about 2 at z=4.5 to 3 at z=3, to 10 at z=1, and finally to 20 at z=0. We also find that the projected SFR density in DLAs follows the Kennicutt law well at all redshifts, and the simulated values are consistent with the recent observational estimates of this quantity by Wolfe et al. (2003a,b). The rate of evolution in the mean metallicity of simulated DLAs as a function of redshift is mild, and is consistent with the rate estimated from observations. The predicted metallicity of DLAs is generally sub-solar in our simulations, and there is a significant scatter in the distribution of DLA metallicity for a given NHI. However, we find that the median metallicity of simulated DLAs is close to that of Lyman-break galaxies, which is higher than the values typically observed for DLAs by nearly an order of magnitude. This discrepancy with observations could be due to an inadequate treatment of SN feedback in our current simulations, perhaps indicating that metals are not expelled efficiently enough from DLAs by outflows. Alternatively, the current observations might be missing the majority of the high metallicity DLAs due to selection effects. (abridged)

We use cosmological smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of the Lambda cold dark matter (CDM) model to study the abundance of damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs) in the redshift range z=0-4.5. We compute the cumulative DLA abundance by using the relation between DLA cross-section and the total halo mass inferred from the simulations. Our approach includes a phenomenological model of galactic wind. We employ the ``conservative entropy'' formulation of SPH, and utilise a series of simulations of varying box-size and particle number to isolate the impact of numerical resolution on our results. We show that the DLA abundance was overestimated in previous studies for three reasons: (1) the overcooling of gas occurring with non-conservative formulations of SPH, (2) a lack of numerical resolution, and (3) an inadequate treatment of feedback. Our new results for the total neutral hydrogen mass density, DLA abundance, and column density distribution function all agree reasonably well with observational estimates at redshift z=3, indicating that DLAs arise naturally from radiatively cooled gas in dark matter haloes that form in a Lambda CDM universe. Our simulations suggest a moderate decrease in DLA abundance by roughly a factor of two from z=4.5 to 3, consistent with observations. A significant decline in abundance from z=3 to z=1, followed by weak evolution from z=1 to z=0, is also indicated, but our low-redshift results need to be interpreted with caution because they are based on coarser simulations than the ones employed at high redshift. Our highest resolution simulation also suggests that the halo mass-scale below which DLAs do not exist is slightly above 10^8 Msun/h at z=3-4, somewhat lower than previously estimated. (abridged)

Dark matter halos formed in CDM simulations are known to have triaxial shapes, with substantial distortions from spherical symmetry. However, conflicting claims have been made with respect to radial variations of halo shape, or trends with mass. We propose a new, more robust method to determine halo shapes based on the gravitational potential, thereby avoiding measurement uncertainties that may be the cause of these discrepancies. We find a strong preference towards prolate halo shapes, with mean minor-to-major axis-ratios close to ~ 0.5. Spherical halos are generally very rare, but there is a trend for smaller mass systems to be less elongated. We also compare dark halo shapes found in hydrodynamical simulations that include radiative cooling, star formation, and feedback processes, with those measured in equivalent collisionless simulations. Dissipation makes dark halos substantially rounder at small radii, to the extent that their shape distribution matches that of elliptical galaxies.

We study the reionisation of the Universe by stellar sources using a numerical approach that combines fast 3D radiative transfer calculations with high resolution hydrodynamical simulations. Ionising fluxes for the sources are derived from intrinsic star formation rates computed in the underlying hydrodynamical simulations. Our mass resolution limit for sources is M~ 4.0 x 10^7 h^-1 M_sol, which is roughly an order of magnitude smaller than in previous studies of this kind. Our calculations reveal that the reionisation process is sensitive to the inclusion of dim sources with masses below ~10^9 h^-1 M_sol. We present the results of our reionisation simulation assuming a range of escape fractions for ionising photons and make statistical comparisons with observational constraints on the neutral fraction of hydrogen at z~6 derived from the z=6.28 SDSS quasar of Becker and coworkers. Our best fitting model has an escape fraction of ~20% and causes reionisation to occur by z~8, although the IGM remains fairly opaque until z~6. In order to simultaneously match the observations from the z=6.28 SDSS quasar and the optical depth measurement from WMAP with the sources modeled here, we require an evolving escape fraction that rises from f_esc=0.20 near z~6 to f_esc>~10 at z~18., 42 pages, 13 figures

We discuss Tree+SPH simulations of galaxy clusters and groups, aimed at studying the effect of cooling and non-gravitational heating on observable properties of the ICM. We simulate at high resolution four halos,with masses in the range (0.2-4)10^{14}M_sol. We discuss the effects of using different SPH implementations and show that high resolution is mandatory to correctly follow the cooling pattern of the ICM. All of our heating schemes which correctly reproduce the X-ray scaling properties of clusters and groups do not succeed in reducing the fraction of collapsed gas below a level of 20 (30) per cent at the cluster (group) scale. Finally, gas compression in cooling cluster regions causes an increase of the temperature and a steepening of the temperature profiles, independent of the presence of non-gravitational heating processes. This is inconsistent with recent observational evidence for a decrease of gas temperature towards the center of relaxed clusters. Provided these discrepancies persist even for a more refined modeling of energy feedback, they may indicate that some basic physical process is still missing in hydrodynamical simulations.

We use simple analytic reasoning to identify physical processes that drive the evolution of the cosmic star formation density in cold dark matter universes. Based on our analysis, we formulate a model to characterise the redshift dependence of the star formation history and compare it to results obtained from a set of hydrodynamic simulations which include star formation and feedback. At early times, densities are sufficiently high and cooling times sufficiently short that abundant quantities of star-forming gas are present in all dark matter halos that can cool by atomic processes. Consequently, the star formation density generically rises exponentially as z decreases, independent of the details of the physical model for star formation, but dependent on the normalisation and shape of the cosmological power spectrum. This part of the evolution is dominated by gravitationally driven growth of the halo mass function. At low redshifts, densities decline as the universe expands to the point that cooling is inhibited, limiting the amount of star-forming gas available. We find that in this regime the star formation rate scales approximately in proportion to the cooling rate within halos. We derive analytic expressions for the full star formation history and show that they match our simulation results to better than ~10%. Using various approximations, we reduce the expressions to a simple analytic fitting function that can be used to compute global cosmological quantities that are directly related to the star formation history. As examples, we consider the integrated stellar density, the supernova and gamma-ray burst rates observable on Earth, the metal enrichment history of the Universe, and the density of compact objects. (abridged), Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, submitted to MNRAS

We present a model for star formation and supernova feedback that describes the multi-phase structure of star forming gas on scales that are typically not resolved in cosmological simulations. Our approach includes radiative heating and cooling, the growth of cold clouds embedded in an ambient hot medium, star formation in these clouds, feedback from supernovae in the form of thermal heating and cloud evaporation, galactic winds and outflows, and metal enrichment. Implemented using SPH, our scheme is a significantly modified and extended version of the grid-based method of Yepes et al. (1997), and enables us to achieve high dynamic range in simulations of structure formation. We discuss properties of the feedback model in detail and show that it predicts a self-regulated, quiescent mode of star formation, which, in particular, stabilises the star forming gaseous layers of disk galaxies. The parameterisation of this mode can be reduced to a single free quantity which determines the overall timescale for star formation. We fix this parameter to match the observed rates of star formation in local disk galaxies. When normalised in this manner, cosmological simulations nevertheless overproduce the observed cosmic abundance of stellar material. We are thus motivated to extend our feedback model to include galactic winds associated with star formation. Using small-scale simulations of individual star-forming disk galaxies, we show that these winds produce either galactic fountains or outflows, depending on the depth of the gravitational potential. Moreover, outflows from galaxies in these simulations drive chemical enrichment of the intergalactic medium, in principle accounting for the presence of metals in the Lyman alpha forest. (abridged)

Employing hydrodynamic simulations of structure formation in a LCDM cosmology, we study the history of cosmic star formation from the "dark ages" at redshift z~20 to the present. In addition to gravity and ordinary hydrodynamics, our model includes radiative heating and cooling of gas, star formation, supernova feedback, and galactic winds. By making use of a comprehensive set of simulations on interlocking scales and epochs, we demonstrate numerical convergence of our results on all relevant halo mass scales, ranging from 10^8 to 10^15 Msun/h. The predicted density of cosmic star formation is broadly consistent with measurements, given observational uncertainty. From the present epoch, it gradually rises by about a factor of ten to a peak at z~5-6, which is beyond the redshift range where it has been estimated observationally. 50% of the stars are predicted to have formed by redshift z~2.1, and are thus older than 10.4 Gyr, while only 25% form at redshifts lower than z~1. The mean age of all stars at the present is about 9 Gyr. Our model predicts a total stellar density at z=0 of Omega_*=0.004, corresponding to about 10% of all baryons being locked up in long-lived stars, in agreement with recent determinations of the luminosity density of the Universe. We determine the "multiplicity function of cosmic star formation" as a function of redshift; i.e. the distribution of star formation with respect to halo mass. We also briefly examine possible implications of our predicted star formation history for reionisation of hydrogen in the Universe. We find that the star formation rate predicted by the simulations is sufficient to account for hydrogen reionisation by z~6, but only if a high escape fraction close to unity is assumed. (abridged)

We present a comprehensive set of convergence tests which explore the role of various numerical parameters on the equilibrium structure of a simulated dark matter halo. We report results obtained with two independent, state-of-the-art, multi-stepping, parallel N-body codes: PKDGRAV and GADGET. We find that convergent mass profiles can be obtained for suitable choices of the gravitational softening, timestep, force accuracy, initial redshift, and particle number. For softenings chosen so that particle discreteness effects are negligible, convergence in the circular velocity is obtained at radii where the following conditions are satisfied: (i) the timestep is much shorter than the local orbital timescale; (ii) accelerations do not exceed a characteristic acceleration imprinted by the gravitational softening; and (iii) enough particles are enclosed so that the collisional relaxation timescale is longer than the age of the universe. The most stringent requirement for convergence is typically that imposed on the particle number by the collisional relaxation criterion, which implies that in order to estimate accurate circular velocities at radii where the density contrast may reach $\sim 10^6$, the region must enclose of order 3000 particles (or more than a few times $10^6$ within the virial radius). Applying these criteria to a galaxy-sized $\Lambda$CDM halo, we find that the spherically-averaged density profile becomes progressively shallower from the virial radius inwards, reaching a logarithmic slope shallower than -1.2 at the innermost resolved point, $r \sim 0.005 r_{200}$, with little evidence for convergence to a power-law behaviour in the inner regions., Comment: 23 pages, 15 figures. Published in MNRAS. Changes : (1) Addition of paragraph at end of Introduction, highlighting more technical sections of paper, (2) Revised summaries at end of major (sub)sections, (3) Modified caption to Figure 15

We discuss SPH simulations of galaxy formation which use a hybrid method to describe a two-phase structure of the star forming ISM on unresolved scales. Our modeling includes radiative cooling, heating due to a UV background, growth of cold clouds embedded in an ambient hot gas, star formation out of cloud material, feedback due to supernovae in the form of thermal heating and cloud evaporation, starbursts that can lead to galactic outflows, and metal enrichment. Our particular model for the treatment of the two-phase structure is based on a modified and extended version of the grid-based approach of Yepes et al. (1997). We discuss the properties of the feedback model and show how it stabilizes star forming disk galaxies and reduces the cosmic star formation rate to a level consistent with current observational constraints.

We use a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of a cold dark matter universe to investigate theoretically the relationship between high redshift galaxies and the Lyman=alpha forest at redshift z=3. Galaxies in the simulation are surrounded by halos of hot gas, which nevertheless contain enough neutral hydrogen to cause a Ly-alpha flux decrement, its strength increasing with galaxy mass. A comparison with recent observational data by Adelberger et. al on the Ly-alpha forest around galaxies reveals that actual galaxies may have systematically less Ly-alpha absorption within 1 Mpc of them than our simulated galaxies. In order to investigate this possibility, we add several simple prescriptions for galaxy feedback on the IGM to the evolved simulation. These include the effect of photoionizing background radiation coming from galactic sources, galactic winds whose only effect is to deposit thermal energy into the IGM, and another, kinetic model for winds, which are assumed to evacuate cavities in the IGM around galaxies. We find that only the latter is able to produce a large effect, enough to match the tentative observational data, given the energy available from star formation in the simulated galaxies. Another intriguing possibility is that a selection effect is responsible, so that galaxies with low Ly-alpha absorption are preferentially included in the sample. This is also viable, but predicts very different galaxy properties (including clustering) than the other scenarios.

We present results on the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effects from a sequence of high resolution hydrodynamic simulations of structure formation, including cooling, feedback and metal injection. These simulations represent a self-consistent thermal model which incorporates ideas from the `pre-heating' scenario while preserving good agreement with the low density IGM at z~3 probed by the Ly-a forest. Four simulations were performed, at two different resolutions with and without radiative effects and star formation. The long-wavelength modes in each simulation were the same, so that we can compare the results on an object by object basis. We demonstrate that our simulations are converged to the sub-arcminute level. The effect of the additional physics is to suppress the mean Comptonization parameter by 20% and to suppress the angular power spectrum of fluctuations by just under a factor of two in this model while leaving the source counts and properties relatively unchanged. We quantify how non-Gaussianity in the SZ maps increases the sample variance over the standard result for Gaussian fluctuations. We identify a large scatter in the Y-M relation which will be important in searches for clusters using the SZ effect(s)., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, modified to reflect version accepted by ApJ

We compare the structure and kinematics of the 11 known satellites of the Milky Way with high resolution simulations of the formation of its dark halo in a LambdaCDM universe. In contrast to earlier work, we find excellent agreement. The observed kinematics are exactly those predicted for stellar populations with the observed spatial structure orbiting within the most massive ``satellite'' substructures in our simulations. Less massive substructures have weaker potential wells than those hosting the observed satellites. If there is a halo substructure ``problem'', it consists in understanding why halo substructures have been so inefficient in making stars. Suggested modifications of dark matter properties (for example, self-interacting or warm dark matter) may well spoil the good agreement found for standard Cold Dark Matter.

We discuss differences in simulation results that arise between the use of either the thermal energy or the entropy as an independent variable in smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). In this context, we derive a new version of SPH that manifestly conserves both energy and entropy if smoothing lengths are allowed to adapt freely to the local mass resolution. To test various formu- lations of SPH, we consider point-like energy injection and find that powerful explosions are well represented by SPH even when the energy is deposited into a single particle, provided that the entropy equation is integrated. If the thermal energy is instead used as an independent variable, unphysical solutions can be obtained for this problem. We also examine the radiative cooling of gas spheres that collapse and virialize in isolation and of halos that form in cosmological simulations of structure formation. When applied to these problems, the thermal energy version of SPH leads to substantial overcooling in halos that are resolved with up to a few thousand particles, while the entropy formulation is biased only moderately low for these halos. For objects resolved with much larger particle numbers, the two approaches yield consistent results. We trace the origin of the differences to systematic resolution effects in the outer parts of cooling flows. The cumulative effect of this overcooling can be significant. In cosmological simulations of moderate size, we find that the fraction of baryons which cool and condense can be reduced by up to a factor ~2 if the entropy equation is employed rather than the thermal energy equation. We also demonstrate that the entropy method leads to a greatly reduced scatter in the density-temperature relation of the low-density Ly-alpha forest relative to the thermal energy approach, in accord with theoretical expectations.(abridged)

We simulate the formation and evolution of the local galaxy population starting from initial conditions with a smoothed linear density field which matches that derived from the IRAS 1.2 Jy galaxy survey. Our simulations track the formation and evolution of all dark matter haloes more massive than 10e+11 solar masses out to a distance of 8000 km/s from the Milky Way. We implement prescriptions similar to those of Kauffmann et al. (1999) to follow the assembly and evolution of the galaxies within these haloes. We focus on two variants of the CDM cosmology: an LCDM and a tCDM model. Galaxy formation in each is adjusted to reproduce the I-band Tully-Fisher relation of Giovanelli et al. (1997). We compare the present-day luminosity functions, colours, morphology and spatial distribution of our simulated galaxies with those of the real local population, in particular with the Updated Zwicky Catalog, with the IRAS PSCz redshift survey, and with individual local clusters such as Coma, Virgo and Perseus. We also use the simulations to study the clustering bias between the dark matter and galaxies of differing type. Although some significant discrepancies remain, our simulations recover the observed intrinsic properties and the observed spatial distribution of local galaxies reasonably well. They can thus be used to calibrate methods which use the observed local galaxy population to estimate the cosmic density parameter or to draw conclusions about the mechanisms of galaxy formation. To facilitate such work, we publically release our z=0 galaxy catalogues, together with the underlying mass distribution., 25 pages, 20 figures, submitted to MNRAS. High resolution copies of figures 1 and 3, halo and galaxy catalogues can be found at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/NumCos/CR/index.html

Star formation in our Galaxy occurs in molecular clouds that are self-gravitating, highly turbulent, and magnetized. We study the conditions under which cloud cores inherit large-scale magnetic field morphologies and how the field is governed by cloud turbulence. We present four moving-mesh simulations of supersonic, turbulent, isothermal, self-gravitating gas with a range of magnetic mean-field strengths characterized by the Alfv\'enic Mach number $\mathcal{M}_{{\rm A}, 0}$, resolving pre-stellar core formation from parsec to a few AU scales. In our simulations with the turbulent kinetic energy density dominating over magnetic pressure ($\mathcal{M}_{{\rm A}, 0}>1$), we find that the collapse is approximately isotropic with $B\propto\rho^{2/3}$, core properties are similar regardless of initial mean-field strength, and the field direction on $100$ AU scales is uncorrelated with the mean field. However, in the case of a dominant large-scale magnetic field ($\mathcal{M}_{{\rm A}, 0}=0.35$), the collapse is anisotropic with $B\propto\rho^{1/2}$. This transition at $\mathcal{M}_{{\rm A}, 0}\sim1$ is not expected to be sharp, but clearly signifies two different paths for magnetic field evolution in star formation. Based on observations of different star forming regions, we conclude that star formation in the interstellar medium may occur in both regimes. Magnetic field correlation with the mean-field extends to smaller scales as $\mathcal{M}_{{\rm A}, 0}$ decreases, making future ALMA observations useful for constraining $\mathcal{M}_{{\rm A}, 0}$ of the interstellar medium., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, ApJ submitted

Hydrodynamical simulations of stellar interactions require stable models of stars as initial conditions. Such initial models, however, are difficult to construct for giant stars because of the wide range in spatial scales of the hydrostatic equilibrium and in dynamical timescales between the core and the envelope of the giant. They are needed for, e.g., modeling the common envelope phase where a giant envelope encompasses both the giant core and a companion star. Here, we present a new method of approximating and reconstructing giant profiles from a stellar evolution code to produce stable models for multi-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. We determine typical stellar stratification profiles with the 1D stellar evolution code MESA. After an appropriate mapping, hydrodynamical simulations are conducted using the moving-mesh code AREPO. The giant profiles are approximated by replacing the core of the giant with a point mass and by constructing a suitable continuation of the profile to the center. Different reconstruction methods are tested that can specifically control the convective behaviour of the model. After mapping to a grid, a relaxation procedure that includes damping of spurious velocities yields stable models in three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. Initially convectively stable configurations lead to stable hydrodynamical models while for stratifications that are convectively unstable in the stellar evolution code, simulations recover the convective behaviour of the initial model and show large convective plumes with Mach numbers up to 0.8. Examples are shown for a $2M_\odot$ red giant and a $0.67M_\odot$ asymptotic giant branch star. A detailed analysis shows that the improved method reliably provides stable models of giant envelopes that can be used as initial conditions for subsequent hydrodynamical simulations of stellar interactions involving giant stars., Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A

We investigate how the way galaxies acquire their gas across cosmic time in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations is modified by a comprehensive physical model for baryonic feedback processes. To do so, we compare two simulations -- with and without feedback -- both evolved with the moving mesh code AREPO. The feedback runs implement the full physics model of the Illustris simulation project, including star formation driven galactic winds and energetic feedback from supermassive blackholes. We explore: (a) the accretion rate of material contributing to the net growth of galaxies and originating directly from the intergalactic medium, finding that feedback strongly suppresses the raw, as well as the net, inflow of this "smooth mode" gas at all redshifts, regardless of the temperature history of newly acquired gas. (b) At the virial radius the temperature and radial flux of inflowing gas is largely unaffected at z=2. However, the spherical covering fraction of inflowing gas at 0.25 rvir decreases substantially, from more than 80% to less than 50%, while the rates of both inflow and outflow increase, indicative of recycling across this boundary. (c) The fractional contribution of smooth accretion to the total accretion rate is lower in the simulation with feedback, by roughly a factor of two across all redshifts. Moreover, the smooth component of gas with a cold temperature history, is entirely suppressed in the feedback run at z, MNRAS published, comments welcome. The official Illustris website can be found at http://www.illustris-project.org

The formation and early evolution of circumstellar discs often occurs within dense, newborn stellar clusters. For the first time, we apply the moving-mesh code AREPO, to circumstellar discs in 3-D, focusing on disc-disc interactions that result from stellar fly-bys. Although a small fraction of stars are expected to undergo close approaches, the outcomes of the most violent encounters might leave an imprint on the discs and host stars that will influence both their orbits and their ability to form planets. We first construct well-behaved 3-D models of self-gravitating discs, and then create a suite of numerical experiments of parabolic encounters, exploring the effects of pericenter separation r_p, disc orientation and disc-star mass ratio (M_d/M_*) on the orbital evolution of the host stars. Close encounters (2r_p, Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, 1 table. Published by MNRAS

(Abridged) We describe a new iterative approach for the realization of equilibrium N-body systems for given density distributions. Our method uses elements of Schwarzschild's technique and of the made-to-measure method, but is based on a different principle. Starting with some initial assignment of particle velocities, we calculate their orbits using a flexible tree-based force algorithm in the stationary potential of the target density distribution. The difference of the time-averaged density response produced by these orbits with respect to the initial density configuration is characterized through a merit function, and a stationary solution of the collisionless Boltzmann equation is found by minimizing this merit function directly by iteratively adjusting the initial velocities. Because the distribution function is in general not unique for a given density structure, we augment the merit function with additional constraints that single out a desired target solution. We do this for broad classes of axisymmetric density distributions by numerically solving the Jeans equations to obtain the second velocity moments, which are then imposed as further constraints in the optimization process. The velocity adjustment is carried out with a stochastic process in which new velocities are randomly drawn from an approximate solution of the distribution function, but are kept only when they improve the fit. Our method converges rapidly and is flexible enough to allow the construction of solutions with third integrals of motion, including disk galaxies with realistic velocity distributions. We demonstrate that the new method reproduces analytic distribution functions where they are known (such as the Hernquist sphere), and that it yields very stable N-body realizations for a variety of examples of compound galaxy models, considerably improving on widely used moment-based approaches., Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures, 1 table. Accepted by MNRAS. Minor changes from submitted version. The source code of GALIC is publicly available now and can be downloaded here: http://www.h-its.org/tap/galic/

We have updated the Munich galaxy formation model to the Planck first-year cosmology, while modifying the treatment of baryonic processes to reproduce recent data on the abundance and passive fractions of galaxies from z= 3 down to z=0. Matching these more extensive and more precise observational results requires us to delay the reincorporation of wind ejecta, to lower the surface density threshold for turning cold gas into stars, to eliminate ram-pressure stripping in haloes less massive than ~10^14 Msun, and to modify our model for radio mode feedback. These changes cure the most obvious failings of our previous models, namely the overly early formation of low-mass galaxies and the overly large fraction of them that are passive at late times. The new model is calibrated to reproduce the observed evolution both of the stellar mass function and of the distribution of star formation rate at each stellar mass. Massive galaxies (M>10^11 [Msun]) assemble most of their mass before z=1 and are predominantly old and passive at z=0, while lower mass galaxies assemble later and, for M, Revised to match published MNRAS version. New databases containing the full galaxy data at all redshifts and for both the Millennium and Millennium-II simulations are publicly released at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/millennium/. Submission includes 15 pages of Supplementary Material with a full description of the treatment of astrophysical processes

We examine the abundance, clustering and metallicity of Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers (DLAs) in a suite of hydrodynamic cosmological simulations using the moving mesh code AREPO. We incorporate models of supernova and AGN feedback, as well as molecular hydrogen formation. We compare our simulations to the column density distribution function at $z=3$, the total DLA abundance at $z=2-4$, the measured DLA bias at $z=2.3$ and the DLA metallicity distribution at $z=2-4$. Our preferred models produce populations of DLAs in good agreement with most of these observations. The exception is the DLA abundance at $z < 3$, which we show requires stronger feedback in $10^{11-12} \, h^{-1} M_\odot$ mass halos. While the DLA population probes a wide range of halo masses, we find the cross-section is dominated by halos of mass $10^{10} - 10^{11} \, h^{-1} M_\odot$ and virial velocities $50 - 100 \;\mathrm{km/s}$. The simulated DLA population has a linear theory bias of $1.7$, whereas the observations require $2.17 \pm 0.2$. We show that non-linear growth increases the bias in our simulations to $2.3$ at $k=1\; \mathrm{Mpc/}h$, the smallest scale observed. The scale-dependence of the bias is, however, very different in the simulations compared against the observations. We show that, of the observations we consider, the DLA abundance and column density function provide the strongest constraints on the feedback model., Expansion of the section on the DLA bias and clarifications to the discussion. Accepted by MNRAS. 13 pages, 11 figures

We use the Illustris Simulations to gain insight into the build-up of the outer, low-surface brightness regions which surround galaxies. We characterize the stellar haloes by means of the logarithmic slope of the spherically-averaged stellar density profiles, alphaSTARS at z=0, and we relate these slopes to the properties of the underlying Dark-Matter (DM) haloes, their central galaxies, and their assembly histories. We analyze a sample of ~5,000 galaxies resolved with more than 5x10^4 particles each, and spanning a variety of morphologies and halo masses (3x10^11 < Mvir < 10^14 Msun). We find a strong trend between stellar halo slope and total halo mass, where more massive objects have shallower stellar haloes than the less massive ones (-5.5 \pm 0.5 < alphaSTARS, Comment: 13 Pages, 8 Figures. Minor changes to match published version: MNRAS, 2014, 444, 237. The Illustris website can be found at http://www.illustris-project.org/

We introduce the Illustris Project, a series of large-scale hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation. The highest resolution simulation, Illustris-1, covers a volume of $(106.5\,{\rm Mpc})^3$, has a dark mass resolution of ${6.26 \times 10^{6}\,{\rm M}_\odot}$, and an initial baryonic matter mass resolution of ${1.26 \times 10^{6}\,{\rm M}_\odot}$. At $z=0$ gravitational forces are softened on scales of $710\,{\rm pc}$, and the smallest hydrodynamical gas cells have an extent of $48\,{\rm pc}$. We follow the dynamical evolution of $2\times 1820^3$ resolution elements and in addition passively evolve $1820^3$ Monte Carlo tracer particles reaching a total particle count of more than $18$ billion. The galaxy formation model includes: primordial and metal-line cooling with self-shielding corrections, stellar evolution, stellar feedback, gas recycling, chemical enrichment, supermassive black hole growth, and feedback from active galactic nuclei. At $z=0$ our simulation volume contains about $40,000$ well-resolved galaxies covering a diverse range of morphologies and colours including early-type, late-type and irregular galaxies. The simulation reproduces reasonably well the cosmic star formation rate density, the galaxy luminosity function, and baryon conversion efficiency at $z=0$. It also qualitatively captures the impact of galaxy environment on the red fractions of galaxies. The internal velocity structure of selected well-resolved disk galaxies obeys the stellar and baryonic Tully-Fisher relation together with flat circular velocity curves. In the well-resolved regime the simulation reproduces the observed mix of early-type and late-type galaxies. Our model predicts a halo mass dependent impact of baryonic effects on the halo mass function and the masses of haloes caused by feedback from supernova and active galactic nuclei., 32 pages, 26 figures. MNRAS accepted. The official Illustris website can be found at http://www.illustris-project.org

We use the moving mesh code AREPO coupled to a time-dependent chemical network to investigate the formation and destruction of molecular gas in simulated spiral galaxies. This allows us to determine the characteristics of the gas that is not traced by CO emission. Our extremely high resolution AREPO simulations allow us to capture the chemical evolution of the disc, without recourse to a parameterised `clumping factor'. We calculate H2 and CO column densities through our simulated disc galaxies, and estimate the CO emission and CO-H2 conversion factor. We find that in conditions akin to those in the local interstellar medium, around 42% of the total molecular mass should be in CO-dark regions, in reasonable agreement with observational estimates. This fraction is almost insensitive to the CO integrated intensity threshold used to discriminate between CO-bright and CO-dark gas, as long as this threshold is less than 10 K km/s. The CO-dark molecular gas primarily resides in extremely long (>100 pc) filaments that are stretched between spiral arms by galactic shear. Only the centres of these filaments are bright in CO, suggesting that filamentary molecular clouds observed in the Milky Way may only be small parts of much larger structures. The CO-dark molecular gas mainly exists in a partially molecular phase which accounts for a significant fraction of the total disc mass budget. The dark gas fraction is higher in simulations with higher ambient UV fields or lower surface densities, implying that external galaxies with these conditions might have a greater proportion of dark gas., Accepted by MNRAS

We present a multi-epoch analysis of the galaxy populations formed within the cosmological hydrodynamical simulations presented in Vogelsberger et al. (2013). These simulations explore the performance of a recently implemented feedback model which includes primordial and metal line radiative cooling with self-shielding corrections; stellar evolution with associated mass loss and chemical enrichment; feedback by stellar winds; black hole seeding, growth and merging; and AGN quasar- and radio-mode heating with a phenomenological prescription for AGN electro-magnetic feedback. We illustrate the impact of the model parameter choices on the resulting simulated galaxy population properties at high and intermediate redshifts. We demonstrate that our scheme is capable of producing galaxy populations that broadly reproduce the observed galaxy stellar mass function extending from redshift z=0 to z=3. We also characterise the evolving galactic B-band luminosity function, stellar mass to halo mass ratio, star formation main sequence, Tully-Fisher relation, and gas-phase mass-metallicity relation and confront them against recent observational estimates. This detailed comparison allows us to validate elements of our feedback model, while also identifying areas of tension that will be addressed in future work.

General-purpose, moving-mesh schemes for hydrodynamics have opened the possibility of combining the accuracy of grid-based numerical methods with the flexibility and automatic resolution adaptivity of particle-based methods. Due to their supersonic nature, Keplerian accretion discs are in principle a very attractive system for applying such freely moving mesh techniques. However, the high degree of symmetry of simple accretion disc models can be difficult to capture accurately by these methods, due to the generation of geometric grid noise and associated numerical diffusion, which is absent in polar grids. To explore these and other issues, in this work we study the idealized problem of two-dimensional planet-disc interaction with the moving-mesh code AREPO. We explore the hydrodynamic evolution of discs with planets through a series of numerical experiments that vary the planet mass, the disc viscosity and the mesh resolution, and compare the resulting surface density, vortensity field and tidal torque with results from the literature. We find that the performance of the moving-mesh code in this problem is in accordance with published results, showing good consistency with grid codes written in polar coordinates. We also conclude that grid noise and mesh distortions do not introduce excessive numerical diffusion. Finally, we show how the moving-mesh approach can naturally increase resolution in regions of high densityaround planets and planetary wakes, while retaining the background flow at low resolution. This provides an alternative to the difficult task of implementing adaptive mesh refinement in conventional polar-coordinate codes., Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables. Updated to match version published by MNRAS

We analyse the properties of the circum-galactic medium and the metal content of the stars comprising the central galaxy in eight hydrodynamical `zoom-in' simulations of disc galaxy formation. We use these properties as a benchmark for our model of galaxy formation physics implemented in the moving-mesh code AREPO, which succeeds in forming quite realistic late-type spirals in the set of `Aquarius' initial conditions of Milky Way-sized haloes. Galactic winds significantly influence the morphology of the circum-galactic medium and induce bipolar features in the distribution of heavy elements. They also affect the thermodynamic properties of the circum-galactic gas by supplying an energy input that sustains its radiative losses. Although a significant fraction of the heavy elements are transferred from the central galaxy to the halo, and even beyond the virial radius, enough metals are retained by stars to yield a peak in their metallicity distributions at about $Z_{\odot}$. All our default runs overestimate the stellar [O/Fe] ratio, an effect that we demonstrate can be rectified by an increase of the adopted SN type Ia rate. Nevertheless, the models have difficulty in producing stellar metallicity gradients of the same strength as observed in the Milky Way., 18 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRAS. Added 1 table, updated figures 1, 2, 4 and 6 and a few text changes to match the accepted version

Cosmological shock waves play an important role in hierarchical structure formation by dissipating and thermalizing kinetic energy of gas flows, thereby heating the universe. Furthermore, identifying shocks in hydrodynamical simulations and measuring their Mach number accurately is critical for calculating the production of non-thermal particle components through diffusive shock acceleration. However, shocks are often significantly broadened in numerical simulations, making it challenging to implement an accurate shock finder. We here introduce a refined methodology for detecting shocks in the moving-mesh code AREPO, and show that results for shock statistics can be sensitive to implementation details. We put special emphasis on filtering against spurious shock detections due to tangential discontinuities and contacts. Both of them are omnipresent in cosmological simulations, for example in the form of shear-induced Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities and cold fronts. As an initial application of our new implementation, we analyse shock statistics in non-radiative cosmological simulations of dark matter and baryons. We find that the bulk of energy dissipation at redshift zero occurs in shocks with Mach numbers around ${\cal M}\approx2.7$. Furthermore, almost $40\%$ of the thermalization is contributed by shocks in the warm hot intergalactic medium (WHIM), whereas $\approx60\%$ occurs in clusters, groups and smaller halos. Compared to previous studies, these findings revise the characterization of the most important shocks towards higher Mach numbers and lower density structures. Our results also suggest that regions with densities above and below $\delta_b=100$ should be roughly equally important for the energetics of cosmic ray acceleration through large-scale structure shocks., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, published in MNRAS, January 2015

We study the properties of black holes and their host galaxies across cosmic time in the Illustris simulation. Illustris is a large scale cosmological hydrodynamical simulation which resolves a (106.5 Mpc)^3 volume with more than 12 billion resolution elements and includes state-of-the-art physical models relevant for galaxy formation. We find that the black hole mass density for redshifts z = 0 - 5 and the black hole mass function at z = 0 predicted by Illustris are in very good agreement with the most recent observational constraints. We show that the bolometric and hard X-ray luminosity functions of AGN at z = 0 and 1 reproduce observational data very well over the full dynamic range probed. Unless the bolometric corrections are largely underestimated, this requires radiative efficiencies to be on average low, epsilon_r, 24 pages, 15 figures. MNRAS accepted. The Illustris website can be found at http://www.illustris-project.org/

We employ an improved methodology to insert live stellar disks into high-resolution dark matter simulations of Milky Way sized halos, allowing us to investigate the fate of thin stellar disks in the tumultuous environment of cold dark matter structures. We study a set of eight different halos, drawn from the Aquarius simulation project, in which stellar disks are adiabatically grown with a prescribed structure, and then allowed to self-consistently evolve. The initial velocity distribution is set-up in very good equilibrium with the help of the GALIC code. We find that the residual triaxiality of the halos leads to significant disk tumbling, qualitatively confirming earlier work. We show that the disk turning motion is unaffected by structural properties of the galaxies such as the presence or absence of a bulge or bar. In typical Milky Way sized dark matter halos, we expect an average turning of the disks by about 40 degrees between z=1 and z=0, over the coarse of 6 Gyr. We also investigate the impact of the disks on substructures, and conversely, the disk heating rate caused by the dark matter halo substructures. The presence of disks reduces the central subhalo abundance by a about a factor of two, due to an increased evaporation rate by gravitational shocks from disk passages. We find that substructures are important for heating the outer parts of stellar disks but do not appear to significantly affect their inner parts., Comment: 22 pages, 23 figures, 1 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Minor text changes to match the accepted version

Previous simulations of the growth of cosmic structures have broadly reproduced the 'cosmic web' of galaxies that we see in the Universe, but failed to create a mixed population of elliptical and spiral galaxies due to numerical inaccuracies and incomplete physical models. Moreover, because of computational constraints, they were unable to track the small scale evolution of gas and stars to the present epoch within a representative portion of the Universe. Here we report a simulation that starts 12 million years after the Big Bang, and traces 13 billion years of cosmic evolution with 12 billion resolution elements in a volume of $(106.5\,{\rm Mpc})^3$. It yields a reasonable population of ellipticals and spirals, reproduces the distribution of galaxies in clusters and statistics of hydrogen on large scales, and at the same time the metal and hydrogen content of galaxies on small scales., Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures, Nature Article (May 8, 2014). The official Illustris website can be found at http://www.illustris-project.org

We simulate the assembly of a massive rich cluster and the formation of its constituent galaxies in a flat, low-density universe. Our most accurate model follows the collapse, the star-formation history and the orbital motion of all galaxies more luminous than the Fornax dwarf spheroidal, while dark halo structure is tracked consistently throughout the cluster for all galaxies more luminous than the SMC. Within its virial radius this model contains about 2.0e7 dark matter particles and almost 5000 distinct dynamically resolved galaxies. Simulations of this same cluster at a variety of resolutions allow us to check explicitly for numerical convergence both of the dark matter structures produced by our new parallel N-body and substructure identification codes, and of the galaxy populations produced by the phenomenological models we use to follow cooling, star formation, feedback and stellar aging. This baryonic modelling is tuned so that our simulations reproduce the observed properties of isolated spirals outside clusters. Without further parameter adjustment our simulations then produce a luminosity function, a mass-to-light ratio, luminosity, number and velocity dispersion profiles, and a morphology-radius relation which are similar to those observed in real clusters. In particular, since our simulations follow galaxy merging explicitly, we can demonstrate that it accounts quantitatively for the observed cluster population of bulges and elliptical galaxies.

The tidal gravitational eld of a cluster distorts the shapes of background galaxies. This signature can be used to place constraints on the mass prole of the cluster, using a maximum likelihood analysis to nd the best-t parameterised model. In Schneider et al. (2000) and King & Schneider (2001) we investigated how accurately parameters can be obtained, concentrating on smooth proles. Here, we consider a realistic model for substructure in a cluster (from N-body simulations), in order to see what influence this has on the recovery of parameters. We nd that for a typical cluster at zd =0 :2, the presence of substructure increases the error on parameters recovered from weak lensing data by3%. Even doubling the substructure amplitude induces only a 10% increase in the parameter dispersion: this bodes well for our method.

We describe the newly written code GADGET which is suitable both for cosmological simulations of structure formation and for the simulation of interacting galaxies. GADGET evolves self-gravitating collisionless fluids with the traditional N-body approach, and a collisional gas by smoothed particle hydrodynamics. Along with the serial version of the code, we discuss a parallel version that has been designed to run on massively parallel supercomputers with distributed memory. While both versions use a tree algorithm to compute gravitational forces, the serial version of GADGET can optionally employ the special-purpose hardware GRAPE instead of the tree. Periodic boundary conditions are supported by means of an Ewald summation technique. The code uses individual and adaptive timesteps for all particles, and it combines this with a scheme for dynamic tree updates. Due to its Lagrangian nature, GADGET thus allows a very large dynamic range to be bridged, both in space and time. So far, GADGET has been successfully used to run simulations with up to 7.5e7 particles, including cosmological studies of large-scale structure formation, high-resolution simulations of the formation of clusters of galaxies, as well as workstation-sized problems of interacting galaxies. In this study, we detail the numerical algorithms employed, and show various tests of the code. We publically release both the serial and the massively parallel version of the code., Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures, replaced to match published version in New Astronomy. For download of the code, see http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/gadget (new version 1.1 available)

Recently there has been a lot of attention focussed on a virialized halo-based approach to understanding the properties of the matter and galaxy power spectrum. A key ingredient in this model is the number and distribution of galaxies within dark matter halos as a function of mass. This quantity has been predicted from semi-analytic modeling and from fits to observational data. Here we present predictions for the occupation number and spatial distribution of sub-halos based on a high-resolution hydrodynamical simulation including cooling, star-formation and feedback., 4 pages, 3 figures, matches version accepted by ApJL

We use the Millennium Simulation series to investigate the mass and redshift dependence of the concentration of equilibrium cold dark matter (CDM) halos. We extend earlier work on the relation between halo mass profiles and assembly histories to show how the latter may be used to predict concentrations for halos of all masses and at any redshift. Our results clarify the link between concentration and the ``collapse redshift'' of a halo as well as why concentration depends on mass and redshift solely through the dimensionless ``peak height'' mass parameter, $\nu(M,z)=\delta_{\rm crit}(z)/\sigma(M,z)$. We combine these results with analytic mass accretion histories to extrapolate the $c(M,z)$ relations to mass regimes difficult to reach through direct simulation. Our model predicts that, at given $z$, $c(M)$ should deviate systematically from a simple power law at high masses, where concentrations approach a constant value, and at low masses, where concentrations are substantially lower than expected from extrapolating published empirical fits. This correction may reduce the expected self-annihilation boost factor from substructure by about one order of magnitude. The model also reproduces the $c(M,z)$ dependence on cosmological parameters reported in earlier work, and thus provides a simple and robust account of the relation between cosmology and the mass-concentration-redshift relation of CDM halos., Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRAS

ABSTRA C T We discuss a heuristic model to implement star formation and feedback in hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation and evolution. In this model, gas is allowed to cool radiatively and to form stars at a rate given by a simple Schmidt-type law. We assume that supernova feedback results in turbulent motions of gas below resolved scales, a process that can pressurize the diffuse gaseous medium effectively, even if it lacks substantial thermal support. Ignoring the complicated detailed physics of the feedback processes, we try to describe their net effect on the interstellar medium with a fiducial second reservoir of internal energy, which accounts for the kinetic energy content of the gas on unresolved scales. Applying the model to three-dimensional, fully self-consistent models of isolated disc galaxies, we show that the resulting feedback loop can be modelled with smoothed particle hydrodynamics such that converged results can be reached with moderate numerical resolution. With an appropriate choice of the free parameters, Kennicutt’s phenomenological star formation law can be reproduced over many orders of magnitude in gas surface density. We also apply the model to mergers of equal-mass disc galaxies, typically resulting in strong nuclear starbursts. Confirming previous findings, the presence of a bulge can delay the onset of the starburst from the first encounter of the galaxies until their final coalescence. The final density profiles of the merger remnants are consistent with de Vaucouleurs profiles, except for the innermost region, where the newly created stars give rise to a luminous core with stellar densities that may be in excess of those observed in the cores of most elliptical galaxies. By comparing the isophotal shapes of collisionless and dissipative merger simulations we show that dissipation leads to isophotes that are more discy than those of corresponding collisionless simulations.

We study the formation of tidal tails in pairs of merging disk galaxies with structural properties motivated by current theories of cold dark matter (CDM) cosmologies. In a recent study, Dubinski, Mihos & Hernquist (1996) showed that the formation of prominent tidal tails can be strongly suppressed by massive and extended dark haloes. For the large halo-to-disk mass ratio expected in CDM cosmologies their sequence of models failed to produce strong tails like those observed in many well-known pairs of interacting galaxies. In order to test whether this effect can constrain the viability of CDM cosmologies, we construct N-body models of disk galaxies with structural properties derived in analogy to the analytical work of Mo, Mao & White (1998). With a series of self-consistent collisionless simulations of galaxy-galaxy mergers we demonstrate that even the disks of very massive dark haloes have no problems developing long tidal tails, provided the halo spin parameter is large enough. We show that the halo-to-disk mass ratio is a poor indicator for the ability to produce tails. Instead, the relative size of disk and halo, or alternatively, the ratio of circular velocity to local escape speed at the half mass radius of the disk are more useful criteria. This result holds in all CDM cosmologies. The length of tidal tails is thus unlikely to provide useful constraints on such models.

Simulations run on the largest available parallel supercomputers are answering the question of how today's rich cosmic structure developed from a smooth, near featureless early universe. The paper presents two such simulations which illustrate how algorithm and implementation strategies can be optimized for specific cosmological problems. The first aims to outline structure in the largest possible volume of the universe. The second treats a single galaxy cluster's evolution with the highest possible resolution.

The merger of two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) imparts a gravitational-wave (GW) recoil kick to the remnant SMBH, which can even eject the SMBH from its host galaxy. An actively-accreting, recoiling SMBH may be observable as an offset quasar. Prior to the advent of a space-based GW observatory, detections of these offset quasars may offer the best chance for identifying recent SMBH mergers. Indeed, observational searches for recoiling quasars have already identified several promising candidates. However, systematic searches for recoils are currently hampered by large uncertainties regarding how often offset quasars should be observable and where they are most likely to be found. Motivated by this, we have developed a model for recoiling quasars in a cosmological framework, utilizing information about the progenitor galaxies from the Illustris cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. For the first time, we model the effects of BH spin alignment and recoil dynamics based on the gas-richness of host galaxies. We predict that if BH spins are not highly aligned, seeing-limited observations could resolve offset AGN, making them promising targets for all-sky surveys. The rarity of large broad-line offsets among SDSS quasars is likely due in part to selection effects but suggests that spin alignment plays a role in suppressing recoils. Nonetheless, in our most physically motivated model where alignment occurs only in gas-rich mergers, hundreds of offset AGN should be found in all-sky surveys. Our findings strongly motivate a dedicated search for recoiling AGN.

We use the Delaunay Tessellation Field Estimator (DTFE) to study the one-point density distribution functions of the Millennium (MS) and Millennium-II (MS-II) simulations. The DTFE technique is based directly on the particle positions, without requiring any type of smoothing or analysis grid, thereby providing high sensitivity to all non-linear structures resolved by the simulations. In order to identify the detailed origin of the shape of the one-point density probability distribution function (PDF), we decompose the simulation particles according to the mass of their host FoF halos, and examine the contributions of different halo mass ranges to the global density PDF. We model the one-point distribution of the FoF halos in each halo mass bin with a set of Monte Carlo realizations of idealized NFW dark matter halos, finding that this reproduces the measurements from the N-body simulations reasonably well, except for a small excess present in simulation results. This excess increases with increasing halo mass. We show that its origin lies in substructure, which becomes progressively more abundant and better resolved in more massive dark matter halos. We demonstrate that the high density tail of the one-point distribution function in less massive halos is severely affected by the gravitational softening length and the mass resolution. In particular, we find these two parameters to be more important for an accurate measurement of the density PDF than the simulated volume. Combining our results from individual halo mass bins we find that the part of the one-point density PDF originating from collapsed halos can nevertheless be quite well described by a simple superposition of a set of NFW halos with the expected cosmological abundance over the resolved mass range. The transition region to the low-density unbound material is however not well captured by such an analytic halo model., 14 pages, 13 figures, minor revision, added 1 figure, Accepted in MNRAS

The ever increasing size and complexity of data coming from simulations of cosmic structure formation demands equally sophisticated tools for their analysis. During the past decade, the art of object finding in these simulations has hence developed into an important discipline itself. A multitude of codes based upon a huge variety of methods and techniques have been spawned yet the question remained as to whether or not they will provide the same (physical) information about the structures of interest. Here we summarize and extent previous work of the "halo finder comparison project": we investigate in detail the (possible) origin of any deviations across finders. To this extent we decipher and discuss differences in halo finding methods, clearly separating them from the disparity in definitions of halo properties. We observe that different codes not only find different numbers of objects leading to a scatter of up to 20 per cent in the halo mass and Vmax function, but also that the particulars of those objects that are identified by all finders differ. The strength of the variation, however, depends on the property studied, e.g. the scatter in position, bulk velocity, mass, and the peak value of the rotation curve is practically below a few per cent, whereas derived quantities such as spin and shape show larger deviations. Our study indicates that the prime contribution to differences in halo properties across codes stems from the distinct particle collection methods and -- to a minor extent -- the particular aspects of how the procedure for removing unbound particles is implemented. We close with a discussion of the relevance and implications of the scatter across different codes for other fields such as semi-analytical galaxy formation models, gravitational lensing, and observables in general., Comment: 28 pages containing 13 figures & 4 tables + 9 pages appendix containing another 4 tables + 4 pages of references, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We apply Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) methods to large-scale simulations of galaxy formation in a LambdaCDM cosmology in order to explore how star formation and feedback are constrained by the observed luminosity and stellar mass functions of galaxies. We build models jointly on the Millennium and Millennium-II simulations, applying fast sampling techniques which allow observed galaxy abundances over the ranges 7, Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, submitted to MNRAS

We investigate the operation of the chemothermal instability in primordial star-forming clouds with a suite of three-dimensional, moving-mesh simulations. In line with previous studies, we find that the gas at the centre of high-redshift minihaloes becomes chemothermally unstable as three-body reactions convert the atomic hydrogen into a fully molecular gas. The competition between the increasing rate at which the gas cools and the increasing optical depth to H2 line emission creates a characteristic dip in the cooling time over the free-fall time on a scale of 100 au. As a result, the free-fall time decreases to below the sound-crossing time, and the cloud may become gravitationally unstable and fragment on a scale of a few tens of au during the initial free-fall phase. In three of the nine haloes investigated, secondary clumps condense out of the parent cloud, which will likely collapse in their own right before they are accreted by the primary clump. In the other haloes, fragmentation at such an early stage is less likely. However, given that previous simulations have shown that the infall velocity decreases substantially once the gas becomes rotationally supported, the amount of time available for perturbations to develop may be much greater than is evident from the limited period of time simulated here., 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, simulation movie available at http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~tgreif