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Oxford University Press (OUP), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1(446), p. 521-554

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stu2058

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The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments

Journal article published in 2014 by Joop Schaye ORCID, Robert A. Crain, Richard G. Bower, Michelle Furlong, Matthieu Schaller, Tom Theuns, Claudio Dalla Vecchia, Claudio Dalla Vecchia, Carlos S. Frenk, Ig G. McCarthy, John C. Helly, Adrian R. Jenkins, Ym M. Rosas-Guevara, Simon Dm M. White, Maarten Baes ORCID and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

We introduce the Virgo Consortium's EAGLE project, a suite of hydrodynamical simulations that follow the formation of galaxies and supermassive black holes in cosmologically representative volumes of a standard �CDM universe. We discuss the limitations of such simulations in light of their finite resolution and poorly constrained subgrid physics, and how these affect their predictive power. One major improvement is our treatment of feedback from massive stars and AGN in which thermal energy is injected into the gas without the need to turn o� cooling or decouple hydrodynamical forces, allowing winds to develop without predetermined speed or mass loading factors. Because the feedback efficiencies cannot be predicted from �first principles, we calibrate them to the present-day galaxy stellar mass function and the amplitude of the galaxy central black hole mass relation, also taking galaxy sizes into account. The observed galaxy stellar mass function is reproduced to �109M� (M�>�1010M� at intermediate resolution), they are insufficiently steep at lower masses. For the reference model the gas fractions and temperatures are too high for clusters of galaxies, but for galaxy groups these discrepancies can be resolved by adopting a higher heating temperature in the subgrid prescription for AGN feedback. The EAGLE simulation suite, which also includes physics variations and higher-resolution zoomed-in volumes described elsewhere, constitutes a valuable new resource for studies of galaxy formation.