arXiv subjects

Stefan Waterval

Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Waterval.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Gas accretion at high redshift: cold flows all the way

We study in detail how massive galaxies accrete gas through cosmic time using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations from the High-z Evolution of Large and Luminous Objects (HELLO) and the Numerical Investigation of a Hundred Astrophysical Objects (NIHAO) projects. We find that accretion through cold filaments at high redshift (z ~ 2-4) is a key factor in maintaining the high star formation rates (> 100 Msun/yr) observed in these galaxies, and that more than 75% of the total gas participating in the star formation process is accreted via this channel at high z even in haloes well above 10^12 Msun. The low volume occupancy of the filaments allows plenty of space for massive gas outflows generated by the vigorous star formation and AGN activity, with the cold incoming gas and the hot outflowing gas barely interacting. We present a model based on a Bayesian hierarchical formalism that accurately describes the evolution of the cold fraction accretion with redshift and halo mass. Our model predicts a relatively constant critical mass (Mc) for the cold-to-hot transition up to z ~ 1.3 and an evolving critical mass log(Mc) proportional to log(1+z)^1.7 at higher redshift. Overall, our findings provide deeper insight into the cosmic evolution of gas accretion modes and offer a robust framework for understanding how cold accretion contributes to galaxy growth across different epochs.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

HELLO project: High-$z$ Evolution of Large and Luminous Objects

We present the High-$z$ Evolution of Large and Luminous Objects (HELLO) project, a set of $\sim\!30$ high-resolution cosmological simulations aimed to study Milky Way analogues ($M_\star\sim10^{10-11}$\,\Msun) at high redshift ($z\sim [2-4]$). Based on the Numerical Investigation of a Hundred Astrophysical Objects (NIHAO), HELLO features an updated scheme for chemical enrichment and the addition of local photoionization feedback. Independently of redshift and mass, our galaxies exhibit a smooth progression along the star formation main sequence until $M_\star \sim\!10^{10.5}$, around which our sample at $z \sim 4$ remains mostly unperturbed while the most massive galaxies at $z \sim 2$ reach their peak star formation rate (SFR) and its subsequent decline, due to a mix of gas consumption and stellar feedback. While AGN feedback remains subdominant with respect to stellar feedback for energy deposition, its localised nature likely adds to the physical processes leading to declining SFRs. The phase in which a galaxy in our mass range can be found at a given redshift is set by its gas reservoir and assembly history. Finally, our galaxies are in excellent agreement with various scaling relations observed with the \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} and the \textit{James Webb Space Telescope}, and hence can be used to provide the theoretical framework to interpret current and future observations from these facilities and shed light on the transition from star-forming to quiescent galaxies.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

No Catch-22 for Fuzzy Dark Matter: testing substructure counts and core sizes via high-resolution cosmological simulations

Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM) has recently emerged as an interesting alternative model to the standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM). In this model, dark matter consists of very light bosonic particles with quantum mechanical effects on galactic scales. Using the N-body code AX-GADGET, we perform cosmological simulations of FDM that fully model the dynamical effects of the quantum potential throughout cosmic evolution. Through the combined analysis of FDM volume and high-resolution zoom-in simulations of different FDM particle masses ($m_χ$ $\sim$ $10^{-23} - 10^{-21}$ eV/c$^2$), we study how FDM impacts the abundance of substructure and the inner density profiles of dark matter haloes. For the first time, using our FDM volume simulations, we provide a fitting formula for the FDM-to-CDM subhalo abundance ratio as a function of the FDM mass. More importantly, our simulations clearly demonstrate that there exists an extended FDM particle mass interval able to reproduce the observed substructure counts and, at the same time, create substantial cores ($r_{c} \sim 1$ kpc) in the density profile of dwarf galaxies ($\approx 10^{9}-10^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$), which stands in stark contrast with CDM predictions even with baryonic effects taken into account. The dark matter distribution in the faintest galaxies offers then a clear way to discriminate between FDM and CDM.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

NIHAO XXVIII: Collateral effects of AGN on dark matter concentration and stellar kinematics

Although active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback is required in simulations of galaxies to regulate star formation, further downstream effects on the dark matter distribution of the halo and stellar kinematics of the central galaxy can be expected. We combine simulations of galaxies with and without AGN physics from the Numerical Investigation of a Hundred Astrophysical Objects (NIHAO) to investigate the effect of AGN on the dark matter profile and central stellar rotation of the host galaxies. Specifically, we study how the concentration-halo mass ($c-M$) relation and the stellar spin parameter ($λ_R$) are affected by AGN feedback. We find that AGN physics is crucial to reduce the central density of simulated massive ($\gtrsim 10^{12}$ M$_\odot$) galaxies and bring their concentration to agreement with results from the Spitzer Photometry & Accurate Rotation Curves (SPARC) sample. Similarly, AGN feedback has a key role in reproducing the dichotomy between slow and fast rotators as observed by the ATLAS$^{3\text{D}}$ survey. Without star formation suppression due to AGN feedback, the number of fast rotators strongly exceeds the observational constraints. Our study shows that there are several collateral effects that support the importance of AGN feedback in galaxy formation, and these effects can be used to constrain its implementation in numerical simulations.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

Creating a galaxy lacking dark matter in a dark matter dominated universe

We use hydrodynamical cosmological simulations to show that it is possible to create, via tidal interactions, galaxies lacking dark matter in a dark matter dominated universe. We select dwarf galaxies from the NIHAO project, obtained in the standard Cold Dark Matter model and use them as initial conditions for simulations of satellite-central interactions. After just one pericentric passage on an orbit with a strong radial component, NIHAO dwarf galaxies can lose up to 80 per~cent of their dark matter content, but, most interestingly, their central ($\approx 8$~kpc) dark matter to stellar ratio changes from a value of ${\sim}25$, as expected from numerical simulations and abundance matching techniques, to roughly unity as reported for NGC1052-DF2 and NGC1054-DF4. The stellar velocity dispersion drops from ${\sim}30$ ${\rm km\,s^{-1}}$ before infall to values as low as $6\pm 2$~ ${\rm km\,s^{-1}}$. These, and the half light radius around 3 kpc, are in good agreement with observations from van Dokkum and collaborators. Our study shows that it is possible to create a galaxy "without" dark matter starting from typical dwarf galaxies formed in a dark matter dominated universe, provided they live in a dense environment.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

Optimizing simulation parameters for weak lensing analyses involving non-Gaussian observables

We performed a series of numerical experiments to quantify the sensitivity of the predictions for weak lensing statistics obtained in raytracing DM-only simulations, to two hyper-parameters that influence the accuracy as well as the computational cost of the predictions: the thickness of the lens planes used to build past light-cones and the mass resolution of the underlying DM simulation. The statistics considered are the power spectrum and a series of non-Gaussian observables, including the one-point probability density function, lensing peaks, and Minkowski functionals. Counter-intuitively, we find that using thin lens planes ($< 60~h^{-1}$Mpc on a $240~h^{-1}$Mpc simulation box) suppresses the power spectrum over a broad range of scales beyond what would be acceptable for an LSST-type survey. A mass resolution of $7.2\times 10^{11}~h^{-1}\,M_{\odot}$ per DM particle (or 256$^3$ particles in a ($240~h^{-1}$Mpc)$^3$ box) is sufficient to extract information using the power spectrum and non-Gaussian statistics from weak lensing data at angular scales down to 1 arcmin with LSST-like levels of shape noise.

astro-ph.CO↗