Published in

Oxford University Press (OUP), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2020

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa857

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Reproducing the Universe: a comparison between the EAGLE simulations and the nearby DustPedia galaxy sample

This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

Full text: Unavailable

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract We compare the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and inferred physical properties for simulated and observed galaxies at low redshift. We exploit UV-submillimetre mock fluxes of ∼7000 z=0 galaxies from the EAGLE suite of cosmological simulations, derived using the radiative transfer code skirt. We compare these to ∼800 observed galaxies in the UV-submillimetre range, from the DustPedia sample of nearby galaxies. To derive global properties, we apply the SED fitting code cigale consistently to both data sets, using the same set of ∼80 million models. The results of this comparison reveal overall agreement between the simulations and observations, both in the SEDs and in the derived physical properties, with a number of discrepancies. The optical and far-infrared regimes, and the scaling relations based upon the global emission, diffuse dust and stellar mass, show high levels of agreement. However, the mid-infrared fluxes of the EAGLE galaxies are overestimated while the far-UV domain is not attenuated enough, compared to the observations. We attribute these discrepancies to a combination of galaxy population differences between the samples, and limitations in the subgrid treatment of star-forming regions in the EAGLE-skirt post-processing recipe. Our findings show the importance of detailed radiative transfer calculations and consistent comparison, and provide suggestions for improved numerical models.

Beta version