The growth of central and satellite galaxies in cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations

We examine the accretion and merger histories of central and satellite galaxies in a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) cosmological simulation that resolves galaxies down to  7 × 10⁹ M_⊙  . Most friends-of-friends haloes in the simulation have a distinct central galaxy, typically 2–5 times more massive than the most massive satellite. As expected, satellites have systematically higher assembly redshifts than central galaxies of the same baryonic mass, and satellites in more massive haloes form earlier. However, contrary to the simplest expectations, satellite galaxies continue to accrete gas and convert it to stars; the gas accretion declines steadily over a period of 0.5–1 Gyr after the satellite halo merges with a larger parent halo. Satellites in a cluster mass halo eventually begin to lose baryonic mass. Typically, satellites in our simulation are 0.1–0.2 mag bluer than in models that assume no gas accretion on to satellites after a halo merger. Since   z = 1  , 27 per cent of central galaxies (above  3 × 10¹⁰ M_⊙  ) and 22 per cent of present-day satellite galaxies have merged with a smaller system above a 1:4 mass ratio; about half of the satellite mergers occurred after the galaxy became a satellite and half before. In effect, satellite galaxies can remain 'central' objects of halo substructures, with continuing accretion and mergers, making the transition in assembly histories and physical properties a gradual one. Implementing such a gradual transformation in semi-analytic models would improve their agreement with observed colour distributions of satellite galaxies in groups and with the observed colour dependence of galaxy clustering.     

Satellite kinematics – II. The halo mass–luminosity relation of central galaxies in SDSS

The kinematics of satellite galaxies reflect the masses of the extended dark matter haloes in which they orbit, and thus shed light on the mass–luminosity relation (MLR) of their corresponding central galaxies. In this paper, we select a large sample of centrals and satellites from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and measure the kinematics (velocity dispersions) of the satellite galaxies as a function of the r -band luminosity of the central galaxies. Using the analytical framework presented in More, van den Bosch & Cacciato, we use these data to infer both the mean and the scatter of the MLR of central galaxies, carefully taking account of selection effects and biases introduced by the stacking procedure. As expected, brighter centrals on average reside in more massive haloes. In addition, we find that the scatter in halo masses for centrals of a given luminosity,  σ_{log  M}   , also increases with increasing luminosity. As we demonstrate, this is consistent with  σ_{log  L}   , which reflects the scatter in the conditional probability function   P ( L _c| M )  , being independent of halo mass. Our analysis of the satellite kinematics yields  σ_{log  L} = 0.16  ±  0.04  , in excellent agreement with constraints from clustering and group catalogues, and with predictions from a semi-analytical model of galaxy formation. We thus conclude that the amount of stochasticity in galaxy formation, which is characterized by  σ_{log  L}   , is well constrained, independent of halo mass and in a good agreement with current models of galaxy formation.     

Satellite kinematics – I. A new method to constrain the halo mass–luminosity relation of central galaxies

Satellite kinematics can be used to probe the masses of dark matter haloes of central galaxies. In order to measure the kinematics with sufficient signal-to-noise ratio, one uses the satellite galaxies of a large number of central galaxies stacked according to similar properties (e.g. luminosity). However, in general, the relation between the luminosity of a central galaxy and the mass of its host halo will have non-zero scatter. Consequently, this stacking results in combining the kinematics of satellite galaxies in haloes of different masses, which complicates the interpretation of the data. In this paper, we present an analytical framework to model satellite kinematics, properly accounting for this scatter and for various selection effects. We show that in the presence of scatter in the halo mass–luminosity relation, the commonly used velocity dispersion of satellite galaxies can not be used to infer a unique halo mass–luminosity relation. In particular, we demonstrate that there is a degeneracy between the mean and the scatter of the halo mass–luminosity relation. We present a new technique that can break this degeneracy, and which involves measuring the velocity dispersions using two different weighting schemes: host weighting (each central galaxy gets the same weight) and satellite weighting (each central galaxy gets a weight proportional to its number of satellites). The ratio between the velocity dispersions obtained using these two weighting schemes is sensitive to the scatter in the halo mass–luminosity relation, and can thus be used to infer a unique relation between light and mass from the kinematics of satellite galaxies.     

Testing model predictions of the cold dark matter cosmology for the sizes, colours, morphologies and luminosities of galaxies with the SDSS

The huge size and uniformity of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) make possible an exacting test of current models of galaxy formation. We compare the predictions of the galform semi-analytical galaxy formation model for the luminosities, morphologies, colours and scalelengths of local galaxies. galform models the luminosity and size of the disc and bulge components of a galaxy, and so we can compute quantities which can be compared directly with SDSS observations, such as the Petrosian magnitude and the Sérsic index. We test the predictions of two published models set in the cold dark matter cosmology: the Baugh et al. model, which assumes a top-heavy initial mass function (IMF) in starbursts and superwind feedback, and the Bower et al. model, which uses active galactic nucleus feedback and a standard IMF. The Bower et al. model better reproduces the overall shape of the luminosity function, the morphology–luminosity relation and the colour bimodality observed in the SDSS data, but gives a poor match to the size–luminosity relation. The Baugh et al. model successfully predicts the size–luminosity relation for late-type galaxies. Both models fail to reproduce the sizes of bright early-type galaxies. These problems highlight the need to understand better both the role of feedback processes in determining galaxy sizes, in particular the treatment of the angular momentum of gas reheated by supernovae, and the sizes of the stellar spheroids formed by galaxy mergers and disc instabilities.     

Massive dark matter haloes around bright isolated galaxies in the 2dFGRS

We identify a large sample of isolated bright galaxies and their fainter satellites in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS). We analyse the dynamics of ensembles of these galaxies selected according to luminosity and morphological type by stacking the positions of their satellites and estimating the velocity dispersion of the combined set. We test our methodology using realistic mock catalogues constructed from cosmological simulations. The method returns an unbiased estimate of the velocity dispersion provided that the isolation criterion is strict enough to avoid contamination and that the scatter in halo mass at fixed primary luminosity is small. Using a maximum likelihood estimator that accounts for interlopers, we determine the satellite velocity dispersion within a projected radius of 175  h ⁻¹ kpc. The dispersion increases with the luminosity of the primary and is larger for elliptical galaxies than for spiral galaxies of similar b _J luminosity. Calibrating the mass–velocity dispersion relation using our mock catalogues, we find a dynamical mass within 175  h ⁻¹ kpc of     for elliptical galaxies and     for spiral galaxies. Finally, we compare our results with recent studies and investigate their limitations using our mock catalogues.     

Environmental effects on satellite galaxies: the link between concentration, size and colour profile

Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 group catalogue of Yang et al., we investigate sizes, concentrations, colour gradients and surface brightness profiles of central and satellite galaxies. We compare central and satellite galaxies at fixed stellar mass, in order to disentangle environmental from stellar mass dependencies. Early- and late-type galaxies are defined according to concentration. We find that at fixed stellar mass, late-type satellite galaxies have smaller radii and larger concentrations than late-type central galaxies. No such differences are found for early-type galaxies. We have also constructed surface brightness and colour profiles for the central and satellite galaxies in our sample. We find that late-type satellite galaxies have a lower surface brightness and redder colours than late-type central galaxies. We show that all observed differences between satellite and central galaxies can be explained by a simple fading model, in which the star formation in the disc decreases over time-scales of 2–3 Gyr after a galaxy becomes a satellite. Processes that induce strong morphological changes (e.g. harassment) and processes that strip the galaxy of its entire interstellar medium need not to be invoked in order to explain the environmental dependencies we find.     

Point spread function tails and the measurements of diffuse stellar halo light around edge-on disc galaxies

Measuring the integrated stellar halo light around galaxies is very challenging. The surface brightness of these haloes is expected to be many magnitudes below dark sky and the central brightness of the galaxy. Here, I show that in some of the recent literature the effect of very extended Point Spread Function (PSF) tails on the measurements of halo light has been underestimated; especially in the case of edge-on disc galaxies. The detection of a halo along the minor axis of an edge-on galaxy in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field can largely be explained by scattered galaxy light. Similarly, depending on filter and the shape one assumes for the uncertain extended PSF, 20–80 per cent of the halo light found along the minor axis of scaled and stacked Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) edge-on galaxy images can be explained by scattered galaxy light. Scattered light also significantly contributes to the anomalous halo colours of stacked SDSS images. The scattered light fraction decreases when looking in the quadrants away from the minor axis. The remaining excess light is well modelled with a Sérsic profile halo with shape parameters based on star count halo detections of nearby galaxies. Even though, the contribution from PSF scattered light does not fully remove the need for extended components around these edge-on galaxies, it will be very challenging to make accurate halo light shape and colour measurements from integrated light without very careful PSF measurements and scattered light modelling.     

On the dynamics of the satellite galaxies in NGC 5044

The NGC 5044 galaxy group is dominated by a luminous elliptical galaxy that is surrounded by ∼160 dwarf satellites. The projected number density profile of this dwarf population deviates within ∼1/3 of the virial radius from a projected Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW) profile, which is assumed to approximate the underlying total matter distribution. By means of a semi-analytic model, we demonstrate that the interplay between gravitation, dynamical friction and tidal mass loss and destruction can explain the observed number density profile. We use only two parameters in our models: the total to stellar mass fraction of the satellite haloes and the disruption efficiency. The disruption efficiency is expressed by a minimum radius. If the tidal radius of a galaxy (halo) falls below this radius, it is assumed to become unobservable. The preferred parameters are an initial total to stellar mass fraction of ∼20 and a disruption radius of  4 kpc  . In that model, about 20 per cent of all the satellites are totally disrupted on their orbits within the group environment. Dynamical friction is less important in shaping the inner slope of the number density profile because the reduction in mass by tidal forces lowers the impact of the friction term. The main destruction mechanism is tide. In the preferred model, the total B -band luminosity of all disrupted galaxies is about twice the observed luminosity of the central elliptical galaxy, indicating that a significant fraction of stars are scattered into the intragroup medium. Dwarf galaxy satellites closer to the centre of the NGC 5044 group may exhibit optical evidence of partial tidal disruption. If dynamical friction forces the satellite to merge with the central elliptical, the angular momentum of the satellite tends to be removed at the apocentre passage. Afterwards, the satellite drops radially towards the centre.     

Satellite systems around galaxies in hydrodynamic simulations

We investigate the properties of satellite galaxies formed in N -body/SPH simulations of galaxy formation in the ΛCDM cosmology. The simulations include the main physical effects thought to be important in galaxy formation and, in several cases, produce realistic spiral discs. In total, a sample of nine galaxies of luminosity comparable to the Milky Way was obtained. At magnitudes brighter than the resolution limit,   M_V =−12  , the luminosity function of the satellite galaxies in the simulations is in excellent agreement with data for the Local Group. The radial number density profile of the model satellites, as well as their gas fractions also match observations very well. In agreement with previous N -body studies, we find that the satellites tend to be distributed in highly flattened configurations whose major axis is aligned with the major axis of the (generally triaxial) dark halo. In two out of three systems with sufficiently large satellite populations, the satellite system is nearly perpendicular to the plane of the galactic disc, a configuration analogous to that observed in the Milk Way. The discs themselves are perpendicular to the minor axis of their host haloes in the inner parts, and the correlation between the orientation of the galaxy and the shape of the halo persists even out to the virial radius. However, in one case the disc's minor axis ends up, at the virial radius, perpendicular to the minor axis of the halo. The angular momenta of the galaxies and their host halo tend to be well aligned.     

The Dependence of Satellite Galaxy Kinematics on Galaxy Properties

The relations between the kinematics of satellites and the properties of hosts and satellites themselves are investigated in this paper. Our sample of hosts and satellites is selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data by adopting a self-adapted method developed by van den Bosch et al. Consistent with the previous studies, the average velocity dispersion increases with the mass of host galaxy, and is larger for red hosts than for blue hosts. We find that, on average, the velocity dispersion is independent of satellite mass around red hosts, however it increases with the satellite mass around blue hosts, and red satellites have a larger velocity dispersion than their blue counterparts. Our further investigations show that in the same halo, the velocity dispersion is independent of satellite mass, regardless of the host color. Interestingly, around red hosts, the red satellites tend to have a smaller velocity dispersion than the blue ones. It implies some interesting processes. In addition, we also find that if host galaxies only have red or blue (high mass or low mass) satellites, the system with red (high mass) satellites has a larger velocity dispersion than that with blue (low mass) satellites. It suggests that satellite properties are important for the measurement of dark halo mass.     

The influence of halo assembly on galaxies and galaxy groups

In this paper, we study the variations of group galaxy properties according to the assembly history in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 (SDSS-DR6) selected groups. Using mock SDSS group catalogues, we find two suitable indicators of group formation time: (i) the isolation of the group, defined as the distance to the nearest neighbour in terms of its virial radius and (ii) the concentration, measured as the group inner density calculated using the fifth nearest bright galaxy to the group centre. Groups within narrow ranges of mass in the mock catalogue show increasing group age with isolation and concentration. However, in the observational data the stellar age, as indicated by the spectral type, only shows a correlation with concentration.
We study groups of similar mass and different assembly history, finding important differences in their galaxy population. Particularly, in high-mass SDSS groups, the number of members, mass-to-light ratios, red galaxy fractions and the magnitude difference between the brightest and second-brightest group galaxies, show different trends as a function of isolation and concentration, even when it is expected that the latter two quantities correlate with group age. Conversely, low-mass SDSS groups appear to be less sensitive to their assembly history.
The correlations detected in the SDSS are not consistent with the trends measured in the mock catalogues. However, discrepancies can be explained in terms of the disagreement found in the age-isolation trends, suggesting that the model might be overestimating the effects of environment. We discuss how the modelling of the cold gas in satellite galaxies could be responsible for this problem. These results can be used to improve our understanding of the evolution of galaxies in high-density environments.     

The cosmological evolution of colour gradients in spheroids

The analysis of the four-colour maps of galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) has revealed, in the sample of 0.4< z <1 early-type field galaxies, the existence of ellipticals with a predominantly old coeval stellar population. However, there is another, unexpected, category of HDF early-type galaxies, in which the galaxy core is significantly bluer than the outer regions. We demonstrate that these colour gradients are predicted by the multizone chemodynamical model for the evolution of elliptical galaxies.
We suggest that the colour gradient could be used as a chronometer for the evolution of elliptical galaxies: galaxies younger than a few Gyr exhibit cores bluer than the surrounding galaxy as a result of ongoing star formation, while more evolved galaxies have redder cores because of metallicity gradients increasing toward the centre.     

Galaxy–dark matter correlations applied to galaxy–galaxy lensing: predictions from the semi-analytic galaxy formation models

We use semi-analytic models of galaxy formation combined with high-resolution N -body simulations to make predictions for galaxy–dark matter correlations and apply them to galaxy–galaxy lensing. We analyse cross-power spectra between the dark matter and different galaxy samples selected by luminosity, colour or star formation rate. We compare the predictions with the recent detection by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We show that the correlation amplitude and the mean tangential shear depend strongly on the luminosity of the sample on scales below 1  h ⁻¹ Mpc, reflecting the correlation between the galaxy luminosity and the halo mass. The cross-correlation cannot, however, be used to infer the halo profile directly because different halo masses dominate on different scales and because not all galaxies are at the centres of the corresponding haloes. We compute the redshift evolution of the cross-correlation amplitude and compare it with those of galaxies and dark matter. We also compute the galaxy–dark matter correlation coefficient and show that it is close to unity on scales above 1  h ⁻¹ Mpc for all considered galaxy types. This would allow one to extract the bias and the dark matter power spectrum on large scales from the galaxy and galaxy–dark matter correlations.     

The shapes of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We determine the underlying shapes of spiral and elliptical galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6) from the observed distribution of projected galaxy shapes, taking into account the effects of dust extinction and reddening. We assume that the underlying shapes of spirals and ellipticals are well approximated by triaxial ellipsoids. The elliptical galaxy data are consistent with oblate spheroids, with a correlation between luminosity and ellipticity: the mean values of minor to middle axis ratios are 0.41 ± 0.03 for   M _r ≈−18  ellipticals and 0.76 ± 0.04 for   M _r ≈−22.5  ellipticals. Ellipticals show almost no dependence of axial ratio on galaxy colour, implying a negligible dust optical depth.
There is a strong variation of spiral galaxy shapes with colour indicating the presence of dust. The intrinsic shapes of spiral galaxies in the SDSS DR6 are consistent with flat discs with a mean and dispersion of thickness to diameter ratio of (21 ± 2) per cent, and a face-on ellipticity, e , of  ln( e ) =−2.33 ± 0.79  . Not including the effects of dust in the model leads to discs that are systematically rounder by up to 60 per cent. More luminous spiral galaxies tend to have thicker and rounder discs than lower luminosity spirals. Both elliptical and spiral galaxies tend to be rounder for larger galaxies.
The marginalized value of the edge-on r -band dust extinction E ₀ in spiral galaxies is   E ₀≃ 0.45  mag for galaxies of median colours, increasing to   E ₀= 1  mag for   g − r > 0.9  and   E ₀= 1.9  for the luminous and most compact galaxies, with half-light radii  <2  h ⁻¹ kpc  .     

Modelling galaxy–galaxy weak lensing with Sloan Digital Sky Survey groups

We use galaxy groups selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) together with mass models for individual groups to study the galaxy–galaxy lensing signals expected from galaxies of different luminosities and morphological types. We compare our model predictions with the observational results obtained from the SDSS by Mandelbaum et al. for the same samples of galaxies. The observational results are well reproduced in a Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model based on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ( WMAP ) 3-yr data, but a ΛCDM model with higher σ₈, such as the one based on the WMAP 1-yr data, significantly overpredicts the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal. We model, separately, the contributions to the galaxy–galaxy lensing signals from different galaxies: central versus satellite, early type versus late type and galaxies in haloes of different masses. We also examine how the predicted galaxy–galaxy lensing signal depends on the shape, density profile and the location of the central galaxy with respect to its host halo.     

Simulating subhaloes at high redshift: merger rates, counts and types

Galaxies are believed to be in one-to-one correspondence with simulated dark matter subhaloes. We use high-resolution N -body simulations of cosmological volumes to calculate the statistical properties of subhalo (galaxy) major mergers at high redshift ( z = 0.6–5). We measure the evolution of the galaxy merger rate, finding that it is much shallower than the merger rate of dark matter host haloes at   z > 2.5  , but roughly parallels that of haloes at   z < 1.6  . We also track the detailed merger histories of individual galaxies and measure the likelihood of multiple mergers per halo or subhalo. We examine satellite merger statistics in detail: 15–35 per cent of all recently merged galaxies are satellites, and satellites are twice as likely as centrals to have had a recent major merger. Finally, we show how the differing evolution of the merger rates of haloes and galaxies leads to the evolution of the average satellite occupation per halo, noting that for a fixed halo mass, the satellite halo occupation peaks at   z ∼ 2.5  .     

Discovery of four gravitational lensing systems by clusters in the SDSS DR6

We report the discovery of 4 strong gravitational lensing systems by visual inspections of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey images of galaxy clusters in Data Release 6 (SDSS DR6). Two of the four systems show Einstein rings while the others show tangen-tial giant arcs. These arcs or rings have large angular separations ( 8") from the bright central galaxies and show bluer color compared with the red cluster galaxies. In addition,we found 5 probable and 4 possible lenses by galaxy clusters.