Star Formation and Feedback in Simulations of Galaxy Formation

A short overview

„We produce a galaxy at any time we want.“

Understanding star formation is central to unravel how galaxies came into being. The aim of this project is to develop a realistic treatment of the cold interstellar medium, star formation and stellar feedback in high-resolution cosmological simulations of galaxy formation. The outcome of the simulations are used to make predictions for – and interpret results from – future observations concerning the cosmic star-formation history, the epochs of hydrogen and helium reionization, and the process of galaxy assembly.

In particular, project C4 addresses several fundamental questions. Large suits of cosmological simulations with different phenomenological models of star formation and feedback yield models that are able to bridge the observational results from Planck and ALMA. Numerical simulations are used to interpret and summarize observational probes of the cosmic reionization process within the cosmological context. New phenomenological descriptions of the relevant physical processes in the ISM are inserted into standard codes for cosmological simulations and thus yield an improvement in the reproduction of key observational aspects within the framework of galaxy formation. Finally, observations of ultra-luminous infrared galaxies need to be interpreted within a comprehensive cosmological paradigm and thus rely on high-resolution numerical simulations capable to model the co-evolution of starburst events and active galactic nuclei.

Star formation plays a crucial role in shaping galaxy properties on kpc scales and also strongly affects the physics of the intergalactic medium. This project extends the research of the SFB to these larger scales. It thereby provides the theoretical framework to interpret the new observational results on star-forming galaxies at high redshift (A1) and on disk galaxies at low redshift (A3,  A4, and A6). At the same time it benefits from the detailed theoretical models of astrochemical processes and the structure of molecular clouds that are developed in projects C1 and C3.

Selected Publications

• 2022

• Bi, D., Shlosman, I., and Romano-Díaz, E., Modeling Evolution of Galactic Bars at Cosmic Dawn, 2022, ApJ, 934, 55
• ​Bi D., Shlosman I., Romano-Díaz E., Emergence of galactic morphologies at cosmic dawn: input from numerical modelling, 2022, MNRAS, 513, 693.
• ​Fichtner Y.A., Grassitelli L., Romano-Díaz E., Porciani C., Mechanical feedback from stellar winds with an application to galaxy formation at high redshift, 2022, MNRAS, 512, 4573.
• ​Karoumpis C., Magnelli B., Romano-Díaz E., Haslbauer M., Bertoldi F., [CII] line intensity mapping the epoch of reionization with the Prime-Cam on FYST. I. Line intensity mapping predictions using the Illustris TNG hydrodynamical simulation, 2022, A&A, 659, A12

• 2021

• Vardoulaki E., Jiménez Andrade E.F., Delvecchio I., Smolčić V., Schinnerer E., Sargent M.T., Gozaliasl G., et al., FR-type radio sources at 3 GHz VLA-COSMOS: Relation to physical properties and large-scale environment, 2021, A&A, 648, A102.
• ​Harrington K.C., Weiß A., Yun M.S., Magnelli B., Sharon C.E., Leung T.K.D., Vishwas A., et al., Turbulent Gas in Lensed Planck-selected Starbursts at z ∼ 1-3.5, 2021, ApJ, 908, 95.
• ​Spina B., Porciani C., Schimd C., The H I–halo mass relation at redshift z ∼ 1 from the Minkowski functionals of 21-cm intensity maps, 2021, MNRAS, 505, 3492.

• 2020

• ​Schäbe A., Romano-Díaz E., Porciani C., Ludlow A.D., Tomassetti M., A comparison of H2 formation models at high redshift, 2020, MNRAS, 497, 5008.
• Jiménez-Andrade E.F., Zavala J.A., Magnelli B., Casey C.M., Liu D., Romano-Díaz E., Schinnerer E., et al., The Redshift and Star Formation Mode of AzTEC2: A Pair of Massive Galaxies at z = 4.63, 2020, ApJ, 890, 171.

• 2019

• ​Harrington K.C., Vishwas A., Weiß A., Magnelli B., Grassitelli L., Zajaček M., Jiménez-Andrade E.F., et al., The ‘Red Radio Ring’: ionized and molecular gas in a starburst/active galactic nucleus at z ∼ 2.55. 2019, MNRAS, 488, 1489.​

• Jiménez-Andrade E.F., Magnelli B., Karim A., Zamorani G., Bondi M., Schinnerer E., Sargent M., et al., Radio continuum size evolution of star-forming galaxies over 0.35 < z < 2.25, 2019, A&A, 625, A114. 
• Sadoun R., Romano-Díaz E., Shlosman I., Zheng Z., Ly α properties of simulated galaxies in overdense regions: effects of galactic winds at z ≳ 6, 2019, MNRAS, 484, 4601
• Garaldi E., Compostella M., Porciani C., The Goldilocks problem of the quasar contribution to reionization, 2019, MNRAS, 483, 5301

• 2018

• Jiménez-Andrade E.F., Magnelli B., Karim A., Jones G.C., Carilli C.L., Romano-Díaz E., Gómez-Guijarro C., et al., Molecular gas in AzTEC/C159: a star-forming disk galaxy 1.3 Gyr after the Big Bang, 2018, A&A, 615, A25
• Garaldi E., Romano-Díaz E., Porciani C., Pawlowski M.S., Radial Acceleration Relation of Λ CDM Satellite Galaxies, 2018, PhRvL, 120, 261301.
• Garaldi, E., Romano-Díaz, E., Borzyszkowski, M., Porciani, C., ZOMG - III. The effect of halo assembly on the satellite population, MNRAS, 2018, 473, 2234.
• Gómez-Guijarro, C., Toft, S., Karim, A., Magnelli, B., Magdis, G. E., Jiménez-Andrade, E. F., Capak, P. L., Fraternali, F., Fujimoto, S., Riechers, D. A., Schinnerer, E., Smolcic, V., Aravena, M., Bertoldi, F., Cortzen, I., Hasinger, G., Hu, E. M., Jones, G. C., Koekemoer, A. M., Lee, N., McCracken, H. J., Michałowski, M. J., Navarrete, F., Povic, M., Puglisi, A., Romano-Díaz, E., et al. Starburst to Quiescent from HST/ALMA: Stars and Dust Unveil Minor Mergers in Submillimeter Galaxies at z ~ 4.5, ApJ, 2018, 856, 121, 121.

• 2017

• Romano-Díaz, E., Garaldi, E., Borzyszkowski, M., Porciani, C., ZOMG - II. Does the halo assembly history influence central galaxies and gas accretion? MNRAS, 2017, 469, 1809
• Borzyszkowski, M., Porciani, C., Romano-Díaz, E., Garaldi, E., ZOMG - I. How the cosmic web inhibits halo growth and generates assembly bias. MNRAS, 2017, 469, 594

• 2016

• Sadoun, R., Shlosman, I., Choi, J.-H., Romano-Díaz, E., The Baryon Cycle at High Redshifts: Effects of Galactic Winds on Galaxy Evolution in Overdense and Average Regions. ApJ, 2016, 829, 71, 71

• 2015

• Tomassetti, M., Porciani, C., Romano-Diaz, E., Ludlow, A.D., Simulating the H 2 content of high- redshift galaxies. MNRAS, 2015, 446, 3330
• Yajima, H., Shlosman, I., Romano-Díaz, E., Nagamine, K., Observational properties of simulated galaxies in overdense and average regions at redshifts z ~ 6 − 12”, MNRAS, 2015, 451, 418

• 2014

• Tomassetti, M., Porciani, C., Romano-Díaz, E., Ludlow, A. D., Papadopoulos, P. P.  Atomic carbon as a powerful tracer of molecular gas in the high-redshift Universe: perspectives for ALMA, MNRAS Letters, 2014, 445, L124
• Compostella, M., Cantalupo, S., Porciani, C., AGN-driven helium reionization and the incidence of extended He III regions at redshift z > 3, MNRAS, 2014, 445, 4186
• Romano-Díaz, E., Shlosman, I., Choi, J.-H., Sadoun, R.  The Gentle Growth of Galaxies at High Redshifts in Overdense Environments. ApJ Letters, 2014, 790L, 32.

• 2013

• Compostella, M., Cantalupo, S., Porciani, C., The imprint of inhomogeneous HeII reionization on the H I and He II Lyα forest. MNRAS, 2013, A&A, 2013, 435, 3169.

• 2012

• Cantalupo, S., Haehnelt, M.G., Lilly, S.J., Detection of dark galaxies and circum-galactic filaments fluorescently illuminated by a quasar at z = 2.4. MNRAS, 2012, 425, 1992.
• Fraternali, F., Tomassetti, M., Estimating mass accretion in galaxies using the Kennicutt-Schmidt law. MNRAS, 2012, 426, 2166.
• Trenti, M., Bradley, L.D., Stiavelli, M., Shull, J.M., Oesch, P., Bouwens, R.J., Munoz, J.A., Romano-Diaz, E., Treu, T., Shlosman, I., Carollo, C.M., Overdensities of Y-dropout galaxies from the brightest-of-reionizing galaxies survey: a candidate protocluster at redshift z~8. ApJ, 2012, 746, 55.

• 2011

• Cantalupo, S., Porciani, C., RADAMESH: cosmological radiative transfer for Adaptive Mesh Refinement simulations. MNRAS, 2011, 411, 1678.