Cosmology and galaxy formation : using the galaxy-halo connection to probe cosmology
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The primary goal of this dissertation is to examine the relationship between galaxies and their dark matter halos. Understanding this relationship is instrumental to using modern galaxy surveys as probes of cosmology and to teasing out the details of galaxy formation. I will focus on methods relating to dark matter only simulations and large area surveys, and the use of galaxy clusters. I begin with an exploration of subhalo abundance matching, a commonly used empirical method for relating galaxies to dark matter halos in dark matter only simulations. The most obvious approach is to simply place the most massive, or most luminous, galaxy into the most massive dark matter halo. Nonetheless, there are several possible variations that I explore within the general class of subhalo abundance matching models. Results from these models are then validated against measurements drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. These models are used to test a method for obtaining cosmology while marginalizing over the details of the galaxy-halo relationship. This method combines two-point clustering measurements with a measurement of cluster mass and richness to provide constraints on the density of dark matter in the universe. The additional cluster statistics are essential to breaking degeneracies between the galaxy-halo relationship and the cosmology that occur when fitting to the two-point clustering alone. While this method had previously been used in the literature, this dissertation adds by performing a fully consistent analysis of multiple galaxy models, demonstrating that so long as the galaxy-halo connection can be adequately modeled by a halo occupation distribution that the cosmology can be estimated in an unbiased manner. Returning to observations, I examine the clusters obtained using the redMaPPer cluster finder applied to SDSS. The trends found are generally consistent with previous cluster catalogs, but take advantage of the reduced scatter in the mass-richness relationship. The results have significant implications for the formation of clusters, particularly the importance of recent mergers on the galaxy statistics and for redshift evolution. This analysis is also applied to early data from DES, showing the evolution of red cluster galaxies up to z=0.9. Finally, I discuss the potential for future work. This includes application of redMaPPer and the M/N formalism to DES and future surveys, as well as directions for using galaxy cluster catalogs as a tool for understanding the formation of the most massive galaxies and their dark matter halos.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Reddick, Rachel Marie |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Physics. |
| Primary advisor | Wechsler, Risa H. (Risa Heyrman) |
| Thesis advisor | Wechsler, Risa H. (Risa Heyrman) |
| Thesis advisor | Allen, Steven |
| Thesis advisor | Burke, David |
| Advisor | Allen, Steven |
| Advisor | Burke, David |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Rachel Marie Reddick. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Physics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Rachel M. Reddick
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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