vix.ing · top · new · best · stats · spec

The AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. X: Formation and Evolution of Galaxies at the High-redshift Frontier

2025/11/06 by Kim, Hyeonyong, Kim, Ji-hoon, Jung, Minyong +21 · 2 citations
#Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.04435

Abstract

Recent observations from JWST have revealed unexpectedly luminous galaxies, exhibiting stellar masses and luminosities significantly higher than predicted by theoretical models at Cosmic Dawn. In this study, we present a suite of cosmological zoom-in simulations targeting high-redshift (z ≥ 10) galaxies with dark matter halo masses in the range 1010 - 1011 \rm M\odot at z=10, using state-of-the-art galaxy formation simulation codes (Enzo, Ramses, Changa, Gadget-3, Gadget-4, and Gizmo). This study aims to evaluate the convergence of the participating codes and their reproducibility of high-redshift galaxies with the galaxy formation model calibrated at relatively low redshift, without additional physics for high-redshift environments. The subgrid physics follows the AGORA CosmoRun framework, with adjustments to resolution and initial conditions to emulate similar physical environments in the early universe. The participating codes show consistent results for key galaxy properties (e.g., stellar mass), but also reveal notable differences (e.g., metallicity), indicating that galaxy properties at high redshifts are highly sensitive to the feedback implementation of the simulation. Massive halos (\rm M\rm halo≥5×1010 \rm M\odot at z=10) succeed in reproducing observed stellar masses, metallicities, and UV luminosities at 10≤ z≤12 without requiring additional subgrid physics, but tend to underpredict those properties at higher redshift. We also find that varying the dust-to-metal ratio modestly affects UV luminosity of simulated galaxies, whereas the absence of dust significantly enhances it. In future work, higher-resolution simulations will be conducted to better understand the formation and evolution of galaxies at Cosmic Dawn.

Citations

Cited by

Related