A simulation of galaxy formation and clustering

F. R. Pearce, A. Jenkins, C. S. Frenk, J. M. Colberg, S. D. M. White, P. A. Thomas, H. M. P. Couchman, J. A. Peacock, G. Efstathiou

Published 1999-05-13Version 1

We discuss early results from the first large N-body/hydrodynamical simulation to resolve the formation of galaxies in a cold dark matter universe. The simulation follows the formation of galaxies by gas cooling within dark halos of mass a few times $10^{11}\Msun$ and above, in a flat universe with a positive cosmological constant. Over 2200 galaxies form in our simulated volume of $(100 \Mpc)^3$. Assigning luminosities to the model galaxies using a spectral population synthesis model results in a K-band luminosity function in excellent agreement with observations. The two-point correlation function of galaxies in the simulation evolves very little since $z=3$ and has a shape close to a power-law over four orders of magnitude in amplitude. At the present day, the galaxy correlation function in the simulation is antibiased relative to the mass on small scales and unbiased on large scales. It provides a reasonable match to observations.