dm2gal: Mapping Dark Matter to Galaxies with Neural Networks

Abstract

Maps of cosmic structure produced by galaxy surveys are one of the key tools for answering fundamental questions about the Universe. Accurate theoretical predictions for these quantities are needed to maximize the scientific return of these programs. Simulating the Universe by including gravity and hydrodynamics is one of the most powerful techniques to accomplish this; unfortunately, these simulations are very expensive computationally. Alternatively, gravity-only simulations are cheaper, but do not predict the locations and properties of galaxies in the cosmic web. In this work, we use convolutional neural networks to paint galaxy stellar masses on top of the dark matter field generated by gravity-only simulations. Stellar mass of galaxies are important for galaxy selection in surveys and thus an important quantity that needs to be predicted. Our model outperforms the state-of-the-art benchmark model and allows the generation of fast and accurate models of the observed galaxy distribution.