Modelling the galaxy-halo connection with semi-recurrent neural networks

Abstract

We present an artificial neural network design in which past and present-day properties of dark matter halos and their local environment are used to predict time-resolved star formation histories and stellar metallicity histories of central and satellite galaxies. Using data from the IllustrisTNG simulations, we train a TensorFlow-based neural network with two inputs: a standard layer with static properties of the dark matter halo, such as halo mass and starting time; and a recurrent layer with variables such as overdensity and halo mass accretion rate, evaluated at multiple time steps from $0\le z\lesssim 20$. The model successfully reproduces key features of the galaxy halo connection, such as the stellar-to-halo mass relation, downsizing, and colour bimodality, for both central and satellite galaxies. We identify mass accretion history as crucial in determining the geometry of the star formation history and trends with halo mass such as downsizing, while environmental variables are important indicators of chemical enrichment. We use these outputs to compute optical spectral energy distributions, and find that they are well matched to the equivalent results in IllustrisTNG, recovering observational statistics such as colour bimodality and mass-magnitude diagrams.

22 pages, excluding references. 25 figures. Submitted to MNRAS

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• Multi-Epoch Machine Learning 2: Identifying physical drivers of galaxy properties in simulations
• Applying unsupervised learning to resolve evolutionary histories and explore the galaxy-halo connection in IllustrisTNG
• On the unique evolutionary mechanisms of massive quiescent galaxies in the epoch of reionisation
• Scatter in the star formation rate-halo mass relation: secondary bias and its impact on line-intensity mapping
• Populating Galaxies Into Halos Via Machine Learning on the Simba Simulation
• Predicting large scale cosmological structure evolution with generative adversarial network-based autoencoders
• Spatially resolved stellar-to-total dynamical mass relation: Radial variations, gradients and profiles of galaxy stellar populations