A primer on hierarchical galaxy formation: the semi-analytical approach

By C. Baugh. 2006

431 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent observational and theoretical breakthroughs make this an exciting time to be working towards understanding the physics of galaxy formation. The goal of this review is to make the principles behind the hierarchical paradigm accessible to a wide audience by providing a pedagogical introduction to modern theories of galaxy formation. I outline the ingredients of the powerful approach called semi-analytical modelling and contrast this method with numerical simulations of the gas dynamics of baryons. Semi-analytical models have enjoyed many successes, but it is the observations which the models struggle to match which mark out areas where future progress is most likely to be made; these are also reviewed.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bd5477befe37dd23400679043656912daf3dcb91

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Citations in the corpus

A semi-analytic model for the co-evolution of galaxies, black holes and active galactic nuclei (2008, background): “…that this framework does provide a promising qualitative understanding of many features of galaxies and their evolution (e.g. Kauffmann, White & Guiderdoni 1993; Cole et al. 1994; Kauffmann et al. 1998; Somerville & Primack 1999; Cole et al. 2000; Somerville, Primack & Faber 2001; Baugh 2006).”
THE KILOPARSEC-SCALE KINEMATICS OF HIGH-REDSHIFT STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2009, background): “An Evolving Picture of Galaxy Formation According to classic theories of galaxy formation (e.g., White & Rees 1978; Mo, Mao, & White 1998; see also the comprehensive review by Baugh 2006), hot-mode spherical accretion dominates the gas accretion history of galaxies.”
The 6dF Galaxy Survey: final redshift release (DR3) and southern large-scale structures (2009, background): “Within this context, the focus has shifted towards an improved understanding of galaxy mass assembly and structure formation generally (e.g. Baugh 2006).”
SEMI-ANALYTIC GALAXY EVOLUTION (SAGE): MODEL CALIBRATION AND BASIC RESULTS (2016, background): “For a more in-depth look at the history of semi-analytic models, see Baugh (2006).”
MASS AND ENVIRONMENT AS DRIVERS OF GALAXY EVOLUTION IN SDSS AND zCOSMOS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE SCHECHTER FUNCTION (2010, background): “…also on developing a theory of galaxy evolution, mostly in the context of so-called semi-analytic models (SAMs) for the galaxy population (e.g., Baugh 2006 for a review), which combine N-body simulations of the formation and evolution of dark matter haloes with simple analytic descriptions of…”
Science with ASKAP (2008, background): “star formation, the release of energy from SNe and AGN, referred to as “feedback”) that drive the formation of galaxies and shape their observable properties (see [15] for a comprehensive overview of semi-analytical modelling).”
Erratum: From dwarf spheroidals to cD galaxies: simulating the galaxy population in a ΛCDM cosmology (2010, background): “For a more general review of semi-analytic models, we refer the reader to Baugh (2006); Benson & Bower (2010b); Benson (2010)”
Luminosity function and radial distribution of Milky Way satellites in a ΛCDM Universe (2009, methodology): “We make use of three different semi-analytic model (SAM) codes in order to predict the observable properties of galax- ies that inhabit the dark matter haloes and sub-haloes identified in the N-body simulations described above (see Baugh 2006 for a recent review on the semi-analytic approach).”
The Star Formation Rate Density and Dust Attenuation Evolution over 12 Gyr with the VVDS Surveys (2011, background): “…AGN feedback, cosmic photoionizing radiation, or environment effects which may result in star formation quenching (e.g., among many others, White & Frenk 1991; Efstathiou 1992; Cole et al. 1994, 2000; Di Matteo et al. 2005; Baugh 2006; Cox et al. 2008; Dekel et al. 2009; de Ravel et al. 2009).”
Galaxy Alignments: An Overview (2015, methodology): “This is analogous to what is routinely done to include photometric properties of galaxies in mock catalogues based on N-body simulations (Baugh 2006).”
Quantifying cosmic variance (2010, methodology): “…requires the adoption of a numerical simulation (e.g., Springer et al. 2005), and either a semi-analytical prescription (Cole et al. 2000; Baugh 2006), or a halo occupation distribution (Berlind & Weinberg 2002; Moster et al. 2010) before an appropriate cosmic variance estimate can be…”
Lightcone mock catalogues from semi-analytic models of galaxy formation – I. Construction and application to the BzK colour selection (2012, background): “…that follow the evolution of baryons trapped in the gravitational potential wells of hierarchically grown dark matter halos (White & Rees 1978; Cole 1991; White & Frenk 1991; Kauffmann et al. 1993; Cole et al. 1994; for reviews of the semi-analytical approach see Baugh 2006 and Benson 2010).”
The MassiveBlack-II simulation: The evolution of haloes and galaxies to z ~ 0 (2014, methodology): “Semi-analytic modelling has been used to process dark matter simulations, resulting in many studies of the galaxies and their properties in the CDM model (see e.g. Baugh 2006; Hirschmann et al. 2012 and references therein).”
The detectability of baryonic acoustic oscillations in future galaxy surveys. (2007, methodology): “(See Baugh 2006 for a discussion of the relative merits of these two approaches.)”
Moving mesh cosmology: numerical techniques and global statistics (2011, methodology): “…of different ways: (i) using so-called semianalytical modelling of galaxy formation (e.g. White & Frenk 1991; Kauffmann, White & Guiderdoni 1993; Baugh 2006; Croton et al. 2006; Benson 2010, 2012; Guo et al. 2011) or the closely related approach of halo occupation distributions (Benson et al.…”
A unified multiwavelength model of galaxy formation (2015, methodology): “…anab initio calculation of the formation and evolution of galaxies using the semi-analytical modelGALFORM, which is set in the context of the hierarchical growth of structure in thedark matter (for reviews of hierarchical galaxy formation, see Baugh 2006, Benson 2010 and Somerville & Davé 2015).”
What determines satellite galaxy disruption (2009, background): “Alternately, semi-analytic models track the star formation histories of subhalos across time with empirically motivated analytic prescriptions (see Baugh 2006, for a recent review).”
Modeling the evolution of infrared galaxies: a parametric backward evolution model (2010, background): “We also need to explain the decrease in the star formation since z = 1, the main candidates being the feedback of AGNs and starbursts (e.g. Baugh 2006) and/or the lack of gas.”
On the impact of empirical and theoretical star formation laws on galaxy formation (2010, background): “…2011 RAS and from photoionization of the intergalactic medium; (v) chemical enrichment of stars and gas and (vi) galaxy mergers driven by dynamical friction within common DM haloes, which can lead to the formation of spheroids and trigger bursts of SF (for reviews see Baugh 2006 and Benson 2010).”
Galaxy formation theory (2010, background): “A recent review of semi-analytic techniques is given by Baugh (2006).”