arXiv subjects

Adrian Jenkins

Publications and source records attributed to Adrian Jenkins.

123 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2004

Cosmological simulations of the intracluster medium

We investigate the properties of the intracluster medium (ICM) that forms within N-body/hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters in a \LambdaCDM cosmology. When radiative cooling and a simple model for galactic feedback are included, our clusters have X-ray luminosities and temperatures in good agreement with observed systems, demonstrating the required excess entropy in their cores. More generally, cooling and feedback increases the entropy of the ICM everywhere, albeit without significantly affecting the slope of the profile (S prop. to r) at large radii. The temperature of the ICM is only modestly increased by these processes, with projected temperature profiles being in reasonable agreement with the observations. Star/galaxy formation is still too efficient in our simulations, however, and so our gas mass fractions are around 60 per cent of the observed value at r_{2500}. Finally, we examine the reliability of using the hydrostatic equilibrium equation to estimate cluster masses and find that it underpredicts the true mass of our clusters by up to 20 per cent, due to incomplete thermalisation of the gas. Feedback reduces this discrepancy, however, with estimates being accurate to within 10 per cent out to r_{500}.

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arXiv2004

The subhalo populations of LCDM dark haloes

We use a large cosmological simulation and a variety of high resolution resimulations of individual cluster and galaxy haloes to study the systematics of subhalo populations over ranges of 1000 in halo mass and 1000 in the ratio of subhalo to parent halo mass. The subhalo populations of different haloes are not scaled copies of each other, but vary systematically with halo properties. On average, the amount of substructure increases with halo mass. At fixed mass, it decreases with halo concentration and with halo formation redshift. These trends are comparable in size to the scatter in subhalo abundance between similar haloes. Averaged over all haloes of given mass, the abundance of low mass subhaloes per unit parent halo mass is independendent of parent mass.It is very similar to the abundance per unit mass of low mass haloes in the universe as a whole, once differing boundary definitions for subhaloes and haloes are accounted for. The radial distribution of subhaloes within their parent haloes is substantially less centrally concentrated than that of the dark matter. It varies at most weakly with the mass(or concentration) of the parent halo and not at all with subhalo mass. It does depend on the criteria used to define the subhalo population considered. About 90% of present-day subhaloes were accreted after z=1 and about 70% after z=0.5. Only about 8% the total mass of all haloes accreted at z=1 survives as bound subhaloes at z=0. For haloes accreted at z=2, the survival mass fraction is just 2%. Subhaloes seen near the centre of their parent typically were accreted earlier and retain less of their original mass than those seen near the edge. These strong systematics mean that comparison with galaxies in real clusters is only possible if the formation of the luminous component is modelled appropriately.

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arXiv2004

Early Formation and Late Merging of the Giant Galaxies

The most luminous galaxies in the present Universe are found at the centers of the most massive dark matter haloes, rich galaxy clusters. In the LCDM cosmology, such massive halo cores are present at redshift z=6 with a comoving number density (as a function of mass interior to ~10 kpc) that is comparable to today's value. The identity of the matter in these central regions is, however, predicted to change as major mergers bring together stars and dark matter from initially well separated sub-units. We use N-body simulations to investigate how these mergers push pre-existing matter outwards in the dominant galaxy while preserving the inner density profile of collisionless matter. It appears that the central regions of large galaxies end up dominated by stars formed in a number of dense cores, well before the last major mergers. The density profile of collisionless matter (stars and dark matter combined) in these central regions appears to be stable and to have attractor-like behavior under merging. This suggests that the baryon loading associated with dissipative contraction and star formation may be erased as subsequent mergers drive the mass distribution back to a universal profile. Such suppression of the effects of baryon loading, along with the early assembly of mass concentrations, may help resolve some apparent challenges to the CDM model for structure formation.

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arXiv2004

Galaxies and subhaloes in LCDM galaxy clusters

We combine 10 high resolution resimulations of cluster--sized dark haloes with semi--analytic galaxy formation modelling in order to compare the number density and velocity dispersion profiles of cluster galaxies with those of dark matter substructures (subhaloes). While the radial distribution of galaxies follows closely that of the dark matter, the distribution of dark matter subhaloes is much less centrally concentrated. The velocity dispersion profiles of galaxies are also very similar to those of the dark matter, while those for subhaloes are biased high, particularly in the inner regions of clusters. We explain how these differences, already clearly visible in earlier work, are a consequence of the formation of galaxies at the centres of dark matter haloes. Galaxies and subhaloes represent different populations and are not directly comparable. Evolution produces a complex and strongly position--dependent relation between galaxies and the subhaloes in which they reside. This relation can be properly modelled only by appropriate physical representation of the galaxy formation process.

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arXiv2004

The Inner Structure of LambdaCDM Halos III: Universality and Asymptotic Slopes

We investigate the mass profile of LambdaCDM halos using a suite of numerical simulations spanning five decades in halo mass, from dwarf galaxies to rich galaxy clusters. Our analysis confirms the proposal of Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW) that the shape of LambdaCDM halo mass profiles differs strongly from a power law and depends little on mass. The logarithmic slope of the spherically-averaged density profile, as measured by beta=-dln(rho)/dln(r), decreases monotonically towards the center and becomes shallower than isothermal (beta<2) inside a characteristic radius, r_{-2}. Although the fitting formula proposed by NFW provides a reasonably good approximation to the density and circular velocity profiles of individual halos, systematic deviations from the best NFW fits are also noticeable. Inside r_{-2}, the profile of simulated halos gets shallower with radius more gradually than predicted and, as a result, NFW fits tend to underestimate the dark matter density in these regions. This discrepancy has been interpreted as indicating a steeply divergent cusp, but our results suggest a different interpretation. We use the density and enclosed mass at our innermost resolved radii to place strong constraints on beta_{0}: density cusps as steep as r^{-1.5} are inconsistent with most of our simulations, although beta_{0}=1 is still consistent with our data. Our density profiles show no sign of converging to a well-defined asymptotic inner power law. We propose a simple formula that reproduces the radial dependence of the slope better than the NFW profile, and so may minimize errors when extrapolating our results inward to radii not yet reliably probed by numerical simulations.

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arXiv2003

Cosmic Structure Growth and Dark Energy

Dark energy has a dramatic effect on the dynamics of the universe, causing the recently discovered acceleration of the expansion. The dynamics are also central to the behavior of the growth of large scale structure, offering the possibility that observations of structure formation provide a sensitive probe of the cosmology and dark energy characteristics. In particular, dark energy with a time varying equation of state can have an influence on structure formation stretching back well into the matter dominated epoch. We analyze this impact, first calculating the linear perturbation results, including those for weak gravitational lensing. These dynamical models possess definite observable differences from constant equation of state models. Then we present a large scale numerical simulation of structure formation, including the largest volume to date involving a time varying equation of state. We find the halo mass function is well described by the Jenkins et al. mass function formula. We also show how to interpret modifications of the Friedmann equation in terms of a time variable equation of state. The results presented here provide steps toward realistic computation of the effect of dark energy in cosmological probes involving large scale structure, such as cluster counts, Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, or weak gravitational lensing.

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arXiv2003

The Halo Occupation Distribution and the Physics of Galaxy Formation

The halo occupation distribution (HOD) describes the bias between galaxies and dark matter by specifying (a) the probability P(N|M) that a halo of virial mass M contains N galaxies of a particular class and (b) the relative distributions of galaxies and dark matter within halos. We calculate predicted HODs for a Lambda-CDM cosmological model using an SPH hydrodynamic simulation and a semi-analytic (SA) galaxy formation model. Although the two methods predict different galaxy mass functions, their HOD predictions agree remarkably well. For mass-selected samples, the mean occupation exhibits a sharp cutoff at low halo masses, a slowly rising plateau for ~1-2, and a more steeply rising high occupancy regime. At low , the mean pair and triple counts are well below Poisson expectations, with important consequences for small scale behavior of 2- and 3-point correlation functions. The HOD depends strongly on galaxy age, with high mass halos populated mainly by old galaxies and low mass halos by young galaxies. The SPH simulation supports several simplifying assumptions about HOD bias: the most massive galaxy in a halo usually lies close to the center and moves near the halo's mean velocity; satellite galaxies have the same radial profile and velocity dispersion as the dark matter; and the mean occupation at fixed halo mass is independent of the halo's larger scale environment. By applying the SPH and SA HODs to a large volume N-body simulation, we show that both methods predict slight, observable departures from a power-law galaxy correlation function. The predicted HODs are closely tied to the underlying galaxy formation physics, they offer useful guidance to theoretical models of galaxy clustering, and they will be tested empirically by ongoing analyses of galaxy redshift surveys. (Shortened)

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arXiv2001

Including star formation and supernova feedback within cosmological simulations of galaxy formation

We investigate phenomenological models of star formation and supernova feedback in N-body/SPH simulations of galaxy formation. First, we compare different prescriptions in the literature for turning cold gas into stars neglecting feedback effects. We find that most prescriptions give broadly similar results: the ratio of cold gas to stars in the final galaxies is primarily controlled by the range of gas densities where star formation is allowed to proceed efficiently. In the absence of feedback, the fraction of gas that cools is much too high resulting, for example, in a K-band luminosity function that is much brighter than observed. This problem is ameliorated by including a feedback model which either imparts radial kinetic perturbations to galactic gas or directly reheats such material and prevents it from cooling for a certain period of time. In both these models, a significant fraction of cold gas is heated and expelled from haloes with an efficiency that varies inversely with with halo circular velocity. Increasing the resolution of a simulation allows a wider dynamic range in mass to be followed, but the average properties of the resolved galaxy population remain largely unaffected. However, as the resolution is increased, more and more gas is reheated by small galaxies; our results suggest that convergence requires the full mass range of galaxies to be resolved.

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arXiv2000

Collisional versus Collisionless Dark Matter

We compare the structure and substructure of dark matter halos in model universes dominated by collisional, strongly self interacting dark matter (SIDM) and collisionless, weakly interacting dark matter (CDM). While SIDM virialised halos are more nearly spherical than CDM halos, they can be rotationally flattened by as much as 20% in their inner regions. Substructure halos suffer ram-pressure truncation and drag which are more rapid and severe than their gravitational counterparts tidal stripping and dynamical friction. Lensing constraints on the size of galactic halos in clusters are a factor of two smaller than predicted by gravitational stripping, and the recent detection of tidal streams of stars escaping from the satellite galaxy Carina suggests that its tidal radius is close to its optical radius of a few hundred parsecs --- an order of magnitude smaller than predicted by CDM models but consistent with SIDM. The orbits of SIDM satellites suffer significant velocity bias $σ_{SIDM}/σ_{CDM}=0.85$ and are more circular than CDM, $β_{SIDM}} \approx 0.5$, in agreement with the inferred orbits of the Galaxy's satellites. In the limit of a short mean free path, SIDM halos have singular isothermal density profiles, thus in its simplest incarnation SIDM is inconsistent with galactic rotation curves.

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arXiv1999

Experimental Cosmic Statistics I: Variance

Counts-in-cells are measured in the $τ$CDM Virgo Hubble Volume simulation. This large N-body experiment has 10^9 particles in a cubic box of size 2000 h^{-1} Mpc. The unprecedented combination of size and resolution allows for the first time a realistic numerical analysis of the cosmic errors and cosmic correlations of statistics related to counts-in-cells measurements, such as the probability distribution function P_N itself, its factorial moments F_k and the related cumulants $\xiav$ and S_N's. These statistics are extracted from the whole simulation cube, as well as from 4096 sub-cubes of size 125 h^{-1}Mpc, each representing a virtual random realization of the local universe. The measurements and their scatter over the sub-volumes are compared to the theoretical predictions of Colombi, Bouchet & Schaeffer (1995) for P_0, and of Szapudi & Colombi (1996, SC) and Szapudi, Colombi & Bernardeau (1999a, SCB) for the factorial moments and the cumulants. The general behavior of experimental variance and cross-correlations as functions of scale and order is well described by theoretical predictions, with a few percent accuracy in the weakly non-linear regime for the cosmic error on factorial moments. (... more in paper >...)

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arXiv1999

Experimental Cosmic Statistics II: Distribution

Colombi et al. 1999 (paper I) investigated the counts-in-cells statistics and their respective errors in the $τ$CDM Virgo Hubble Volume simulation. This extremely large $N$-body experiment also allows a numerical investigation of the {\em cosmic distribution function}, $Υ(\tA)$ itself for the first time. For a statistic $A$, $Υ(\tA)$ is the probability density of measuring the value $\tA$ in a finite galaxy catalog. $Υ$ was evaluated for the distribution of counts-in-cells, $P_N$, the factorial moments, $F_k$, and the cumulants, $\xiav$ and $S_N$'s, using the same subsamples as paper I. While paper I concentrated on the first two moments of $Υ$, i.e. the mean, the cosmic error and the cross-correlations, here the function $Υ$ is studied in its full generality, including a preliminary analysis of joint distributions $Υ(\tA,\tB)$. The most significant, and reassuring result for the analyses of future galaxy data is that the cosmic distribution function is nearly Gaussian provided its variance is small. A good practical criterion for the relative cosmic error is that $ΔA/A \la 0.2$. This means that for accurate measurements, the theory of the cosmic errors, presented by Szapudi & Colombi (1996) and Szapudi, Colombi & Bernardeau (1999), and confirmed empirically by paper I, is sufficient for a full statistical description and thus for a maximum likelihood rating of models. As the cosmic error increases, the cosmic distribution function $Υ$ becomes increasingly skewed and is well described by a generalization of the lognormal distribution. The cosmic skewness is introduced as an additional free parameter. (...more in paper...)

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arXiv1999

Galaxy clustering determined from numerical cosmological simulations

We have simulated the growth of structure in two 100 Mpc boxes for LCDM and SCDM universes. These N-body/SPH simulations include a gaseous component which is able to cool radiatively. A fraction of the gas cools into cold dense objects which we identify as galaxies. In this article we give a preliminary analysis of the clustering behaviour of these galaxies concentrating on the LCDM model. We find a galaxy correlation function which is very close to a power law and which evolves relatively little with redshift. The pairwise dispersions of the galaxies are significantly lower than the dark matter. The LCDM model gives a surprisingly good match to the observational determinations of the galaxy correlation function and pairwise dispersions.

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arXiv1998

Galaxy Clusters in the Hubble Volume Simulations

We report on analyses of cluster samples obtained from the Hubble Volume Simulations. These simulations, an $Ω=1$ model named $τ$CDM and a flat low $Ω$ model with a cosmological constant ($Λ$CDM), comprise the largest computational efforts to date in numerical cosmology. We investigate the presence of massive galaxy clusters at $z\approx 0.8$. The $τ$CDM model fails to form clusters at such a redshift. However, due to the small number of observed clusters around $z\approx 0.8$ and the uncertainties in the determinations of their masses, this conclusion still is somewhat preliminary. We produce cluster catalogs at $z=0$ for both cosmologies and investigate their two--point correlation function $ξ$. We show that the relationship between the mean density of subsamples of clusters, expressed via their mean separation $d_{\rm c}$, and the correlation length $r_0$, defined through $ξ(r_0) = 1$, is not linear but turns over gently for large $d_{\rm c}$. An analytic prediction by Mo & White (1996) overpredicts $r_0$. The results from the analysis of the APM cluster data by Croft et al. (1997) are nicely matched by the $Λ$CDM model.

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arXiv1997

On Arcs and Omega

The gravitational lens effect of galaxy clusters can produce large arcs from source galaxies in their background. Typical source redshifts of ~ 1 require clusters at z ~ 0.3 for arcs to form efficiently. Given the cluster abundance at the present epoch, the fewer clusters exist at z ~ 0.3 the higher Omega_0 is, because the formation epoch of galaxy clusters strongly depends on Omega_0. In addition, at fixed Omega_0, clusters are less concentrated, and hence less efficient lenses, when the cosmological constant is positive, Omega_Lambda > 0. Numerical cluster simulations show that the expected number of arcs on the sky is indeed a sensitive function of Omega_0 and Omega_Lambda. The numerical results are compatible with the statistics of observed arcs only in a universe with low matter density, Omega_0 ~ 0.3, and zero cosmological constant. Other models fail by one or two orders of magnitude, rendering arc statistics a sensitive probe for cosmological parameters.

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arXiv1997

Arc statistics with realistic cluster potentials. IV. Clusters in different cosmologies

We use numerical simulations of galaxy clusters in different cosmologies to study their ability to form large arcs. The cosmological models are: Standard CDM (SCDM; Omega_0=1, Omega_Lambda=0); tauCDM with reduced small-scale power (parameters as SCDM, but with a smaller shape parameter of the power spectrum); open CDM (OCDM; Omega_0=0.3, Omega_Lambda=0); and spatially flat, low-density CDM (LambdaCDM; Omega_0=0.3, Omega_Lambda=0.7). All models are normalised to the local number density of rich clusters. Simulating gravitational lensing by these clusters, we compute optical depths for the formation of large arcs. For large arcs with length-to-width ratio >= 10, the optical depth is largest for OCDM. Relative to OCDM, the optical depth is lower by about an order of magnitude for LambdaCDM, and by about two orders of magnitude for S/tauCDM. These differences originate from the different epochs of cluster formation across the cosmological models, and from the non-linearity of the strong lensing effect. We conclude that only the OCDM model can reproduce the observed arc abundance well, while the other models fail to do so by orders of magnitude.

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