Tracing correlations between galaxy properties across the Cosmic Web: An IllustrisTNG-based study

Abstract

We explore the impact of cosmic web environments on galaxy properties such as $(u-r)$colour, stellar mass, star formation rate, and stellar metallicity, using a stellar mass-matched sample of simulated galaxies from the IllustrisTNG simulation. We use Normalized Mutual Information (NMI) to quantify correlations among galaxy properties and apply Student's t-test to assess the statistical significance of their differences across cosmic web environments. In every case, the null hypothesis is rejected at $>99.99\%$ confidence, providing strong evidence that correlations among galaxy properties are strongly dependent on cosmic web environments.

18 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Computing