How do galaxies populate Dark Matter halos?

Cheng Li; Michael Boylan-Kolchin; Qi Guo; Simon White

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How do galaxies populate Dark Matter halos?

Qi Guo, Simon White, Cheng Li, Michael Boylan-Kolchin

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Submitted 24 Sep 2009

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim Under the plausible hypothesis that the stellar mass of a galaxy is an increasing function of the maximum mass ever attained by its halo, these combine to give halo mass as a function of stellar mass.

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What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.03 · states limitation 0.46 · human participants 0.02 · controlled comparison 0.07 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.98 · compares with prior results 0.97 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

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arXiv listing abstract v3. Results and the main claim are underlined; show every role.

For any assumed stellar Initial Mass Function, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) gives a precise determination of the stellar mass function of galaxies for 10^8 M_sun < M_* < 10^12 M_sun. Within the concordance LCDM cosmology, the Millennium simulations give a precise halo mass function for all halos within which galaxies can form. Under the plausible hypothesis that the stellar mass of a galaxy is an increasing function of the maximum mass ever attained by its halo, these combine to give halo mass as a function of stellar mass. The result agrees quite well with observational estimates of mean halo mass as a function of stellar mass from stacking analyses of the gravitational lensing signal and the satellite dynamics of SDSS galaxies. For M_* ~ 5.5 x 10^10 M_sun, the stellar mass usually assumed for the Milky Way, the implied halo mass is ~ 2 x 10^12 M_sun, consistent with most recent direct estimates and inferences from the MW/M31 Timing Argument. The fraction of the baryons associated with each halo which are present as stars in its central galaxy reaches a maximum of 20% at masses somewhat below that of the Milky Way, and falls rapidly at both higher and lower masses. These conversion efficiencies are lower than in almost all recent high-resolution simulations of galaxy formation, showing that these are not yet viable models for the formation of typical members of the galaxy population. When inserted in the Millennium-II Simulation, our derived relation between stellar mass and halo mass predicts a stellar mass autocorrelation function in excellent agreement with that measured directly in the SDSS. The implied Tully-Fisher relation also appears consistent with observation, suggesting that galaxy luminosity functions and Tully-Fisher relations can be reproduced simultaneously in a LCDM cosmology.

background contribution method result interpretation main claim

What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	For any assumed stellar Initial Mass Function, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) gives a precise determination of the stellar mass function of galaxies for 10^8 M_sun < M_* < 10^12 M_sun.	method 0.57	0.13	0.03	asserted 1.00
s1	Within the concordance LCDM cosmology, the Millennium simulations give a precise halo mass function for all halos within which galaxies can form.	method 0.60	0.09	0.03	asserted 1.00
s2	Under the plausible hypothesis that the stellar mass of a galaxy is an increasing function of the maximum mass ever attained by its halo, these combine to give halo mass as a function of stellar mass.	method 0.80	0.56	0.26	asserted 0.49
s3	The result agrees quite well with observational estimates of mean halo mass as a function of stellar mass from stacking analyses of the gravitational lensing signal and the satellite dynamics of SDSS galaxies.	result 0.95	0.66	0.19	asserted 0.85
s4	For M_* ~ 5.5 x 10^10 M_sun, the stellar mass usually assumed for the Milky Way, the implied halo mass is ~ 2 x 10^12 M_sun, consistent with most recent direct estimates and inferences from the MW/M31 Timing Argument.	result 0.96	0.73	0.11	hedged possibility 0.52
s5	The fraction of the baryons associated with each halo which are present as stars in its central galaxy reaches a maximum of 20% at masses somewhat below that of the Milky Way, and falls rapidly at both higher and lower masses.	result 0.99	0.84	0.23	asserted 1.00
s6	These conversion efficiencies are lower than in almost all recent high-resolution simulations of galaxy formation, showing that these are not yet viable models for the formation of typical members of the galaxy population.	interpretation 0.93	0.47	0.25	asserted 1.00
s7	When inserted in the Millennium-II Simulation, our derived relation between stellar mass and halo mass predicts a stellar mass autocorrelation function in excellent agreement with that measured directly in the SDSS.	result 0.99	0.86	0.10	asserted 0.99
s8	The implied Tully-Fisher relation also appears consistent with observation, suggesting that galaxy luminosity functions and Tully-Fisher relations can be reproduced simultaneously in a LCDM cosmology.	interpretation 0.81	0.75	0.12	hedged possibility 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: theoretical result 0.54 · evidence from analysis of existing data 0.78.

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arXiv listing abstract v3

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full text
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references and citing sentences
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C citations
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The paper

Original abstract

For any assumed stellar Initial Mass Function, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) gives a precise determination of the stellar mass function of galaxies for 10^8 M_sun < M_* < 10^12 M_sun. Within the concordance LCDM cosmology, the Millennium simulations give a precise halo mass function for all halos within which galaxies can form. Under the plausible hypothesis that the stellar mass of a galaxy is an increasing function of the maximum mass ever attained by its halo, these combine to give halo mass as a function of stellar mass. The result agrees quite well with observational estimates of mean halo mass as a function of stellar mass from stacking analyses of the gravitational lensing signal and the satellite dynamics of SDSS galaxies. For M_* ~ 5.5 x 10^10 M_sun, the stellar mass usually assumed for the Milky Way, the implied halo mass is ~ 2 x 10^12 M_sun, consistent with most recent direct estimates and inferences from the MW/M31 Timing Argument. The fraction of the baryons associated with each halo which are present as stars in its central galaxy reaches a maximum of 20% at masses somewhat below that of the Milky Way, and falls rapidly at both higher and lower masses. These conversion efficiencies are lower than in almost all recent high-resolution simulations of galaxy formation, showing that these are not yet viable models for the formation of typical members of the galaxy population. When inserted in the Millennium-II Simulation, our derived relation between stellar mass and halo mass predicts a stellar mass autocorrelation function in excellent agreement with that measured directly in the SDSS. The implied Tully-Fisher relation also appears consistent with observation, suggesting that galaxy luminosity functions and Tully-Fisher relations can be reproduced simultaneously in a LCDM cosmology.

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References

Forward citations

Cited by 9 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

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Weighing Galaxies Inside-Out: Small-Scale Lensing and the Stellar Mass Problem
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Euclid small-scale galaxy-galaxy lensing could constrain the stellar IMF mismatch parameter α to roughly 8.5 percent, competitive with strong lensing plus dynamics.

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An Energetic Consistency Test for Feedback-Driven Gas Loss in Milky Way Dwarf Satellites
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Dark Matter Self-interactions and Small Scale Structure
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How later papers used it

198 later papers cite it

Evidence: substantial. 179 of the citing papers share no author with it, and 43 of those carry a confident label from Pith's citation classifier.

Pith read 18 of the 272 citing sentences, choosing only those whose citation markers point at this paper alone, and wrote the paraphrases from them. The summary, the counts, the evidence level, the links and the quotes come from code; the summary counts the papers listed below. A later paper is listed under a label when Pith's citation classifier gives one of its sentences that label at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), Pith's reading finds that the citing paper itself did it, and a second check confirms the paraphrase against the sentence. This section lists uses only. It does not list criticism or disagreement, so their absence here says nothing about how the paper has been received. Papers that share an author with this one are listed apart, under "By the same authors". A quote is the citing authors' own sentence, shown when their paper's licence is CC BY, CC BY-SA or CC0. JSON

2 later papers by other authors are listed below: 2 used its data or values.

Uses its data or values 2 of 12 papers with this label

From abundance matching [ref] we extract the halo mass of $1.2×10^12$ M$_⊙$ for NGC 2276 model, and $5.8×10^12$ M$_⊙$ for NGC 2300 model.

The star formation history of NGC 2276: Comparison between SED modeling and hydrodynamical simulations (2026) · Galaxy setup · 0.95
Adopted the combined stellar mass measured by another work and inferred by this paper.

Orbits of Massive Satellite Galaxies: I. A Close Look at the Large Magellanic Cloud and a New Orbital History for M33 (2016) · 1.00 · paraphrased: the licence does not allow quoting

How the literature uses it

25 arXiv papers cite this in 36 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 26 sentences without a confident label

Uses its data or values 2 papers

Namely the concentration of MW-like halos from Ref. [ref] and the following relation for the ratio of stellar mass, $M_⋆$, to DM mass, $M_χ$,: [equation] found by Ref. [ref] to be a good fit to the Millennium-II simulation.

A self-consistent phase-space distribution function for the anisotropic Dark Matter halo of the Milky Way · Other observations · 0.87
In addition, we take $M_min=10^8h^-1M_⊙$ as the minimum mass of the dwarf satellite galaxies [ref] and $M_h=1.77×10^12h^-1M_⊙$ as the Milky Way mass based on Ref. [ref] .

Probing PeV scale SUSY-breaking with Satellite Galaxies and Primordial Gravitational Waves · $Δ_min$ from $N_sat$ · 1.00

Compares with it 3 papers

We compared our constraints on the MLR and MSR of central galaxies with a number of other, independent constraints coming from the SDSS galaxy group catalogue of [ref] , the galaxy-galaxy lensing analyses of [ref] , [ref] and [ref] , the galaxy clustering analysis of [ref] , subhalo abundance matching studies of [ref] , [ref] and [ref] , and the analysis of satellite kinematics by [ref] .

Satellite Kinematics III: Halo Masses of Central Galaxies in SDSS · Summary · 1.00
At $z∼0.1$, their data source matches ours [ref] , but their approach finds a best-fit scatter in stellar mass at fixed halo mass of $ξ= 0.2$ dex, essentially the highest value allowed by the stellar mass function [ref] .

A Comprehensive Analysis of Uncertainties Affecting the Stellar Mass - Halo Mass Relation for 0<z<4 · Comparison with other work · 0.93
At low masses ($M_⋆<10^11$), it appears that the [ref] and [ref] results agree best with our measurement for groups with more than two members, while at the high mass end the average halo mass in our sample is lower than their predictions.

Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): The halo mass of galaxy groups from maximum-likelihood weak lensing · Comparison of the halo mass-stellar mass relation with other works · 1.00

Cites it as support 1 paper

The observation that the amount of star formation (i.e. stellar mass $$) is correlated with $$ (e.g. [ref] ) is consistent with the above picture.

The coevolution of the velocity and mass functions of galaxies and dark haloes · Implications for the $$ paradigm and galaxy evolution · 0.99

Cites it as background 2 papers

Some recent works in the literature are focused on the connection of the HMF with the broadly measured stellar mass function (SMF) of galaxies (e.g., [ref] ).

The coevolution of the velocity and mass functions of galaxies and dark haloes · Introduction · 0.98
SAMs ( [ref] ) use pre-calculated dark matter merger trees either from EPS or direct cosmological simulations and follow the formation of galaxies with simplified, physically and observationally motivated, analytic recipes.

Galaxy formation in semi-analytic models and cosmological hydrodynamic zoom simulations · Introduction · 0.91

What it cites · 6 sentences without a confident label

Uses data or values from 2 papers

This is based on a complete and uniform sample of almost half a million galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 7 (SDSS/DR7) [ref] .

The Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey · Connecting Galaxies to Dark Matter Halos · 0.87
Cyan dots show results of a survey of baryonic physics parameter space by [ref] .

The Modelling of Feedback Processes in Cosmological Simulations of Disk Galaxy Formation · Galaxy Formation Efficiency · 0.91

Cites as support 1 paper

This is plausible, given results from detailed simulations of spiral formation [ref] .

Galaxy-Induced Transformation of Dark Matter Halos · The stellar mass “Tully-Fisher” relation · 0.98

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