SIBELIUS-DARK: a galaxy catalogue of the local volume from a constrained realization simulation

McAlpine, Stuart; Helly, John C; Schaller, Matthieu; Sawala, Till; Lavaux, Guilhem; Jasche, Jens; Frenk, Carlos S; Jenkins, Adrian; Lucey, John R; Johansson, Peter H

Abstract

We present SIBELIUS-DARK, a constrained realization simulation of the local volume to a distance of 200 Mpc from the Milky Way. SIBELIUS-DARK is the first study of the ‘Simulations Beyond The Local Universe’ (SIBELIUS) project, which has the goal of embedding a model Local Group-like system within the correct cosmic environment. The simulation is dark-matter-only, with the galaxy population calculated using the semi-analytic model of galaxy formation, GALFORM. We demonstrate that the large-scale structure that emerges from the SIBELIUS constrained initial conditions matches well the observational data. The inferred galaxy population of SIBELIUS-DARK also match well the observational data, both statistically for the whole volume and on an object-by-object basis for the most massive clusters. For example, the K-band number counts across the whole sky, and when divided between the northern and southern Galactic hemispheres, are well reproduced by SIBELIUS-DARK. We find that the local volume is somewhat unusual in the wider context of ΛCDM: it contains an abnormally high number of supermassive clusters, as well as an overall large-scale underdensity at the level of ≈5 per cent relative to the cosmic mean. However, whilst rare, the extent of these peculiarities does not significantly challenge the ΛCDM model. SIBELIUS-DARK is the most comprehensive constrained realization simulation of the local volume to date, and with this paper we publicly release the halo and galaxy catalogues at z = 0, which we hope will be useful to the wider astronomy community.

Citation

McAlpine, S., Helly, J. C., Schaller, M., Sawala, T., Lavaux, G., Jasche, J., …Johansson, P. H. (2022). SIBELIUS-DARK: a galaxy catalogue of the local volume from a constrained realization simulation. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 512(4), 5823-5847. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac295

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 30, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 8, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-06
• Deposit Date: Jun 21, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 21, 2022
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 512
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 5823-5847
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac295