The Void Phenomenon Explained

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations and a simple halo occupation model to explain the observed scarcity of faint galaxies in cosmic voids, aligning well with multiple statistical measures and supporting the LCDM cosmology.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the void phenomenon can be explained by galaxy formation driven mainly by dark matter halo mass, without complex environmental dependence.

Findings

Large voids of ~15 Mpc/h contain faint galaxies as predicted.

The model matches galaxy luminosity functions in underdense regions.

The boundary between filaments and voids is sharp for dwarfs and brighter galaxies.

Abstract

We use high-resolution N-body simulations, combined with a halo occupation model of galaxy bias, to investigate voids in the galaxy distribution. Our goal is to address the 'void phenomenon' of Peebles (2001), which presents the observed dearth of faint galaxies in voids as a challenge to the current cosmology. In our model, galaxy luminosity is determined only as a function of dark matter halo mass. With this simple assumption, we demonstrate that large, empty voids of ~15 Mpc/h in diameter are expected even for galaxies seven magnitudes fainter than L*. The predictions of our model are in excellent agreement with several statistical measures; (i) the luminosity function of galaxies in underdense regions, (ii) nearest neighbor statistics of dwarf galaxies, (iii) the void probability function of faint galaxies. In the transition between filaments and voids in the dark matter, the halo mass function changes abruptly, causing the maximum galaxy luminosity to decrease by ~5 magnitudes over a range of ~1 Mpc/h. Thus the boundary between filaments and voids in the galaxy distribution is nearly as sharp for dwarfs as for ~L* objects. These results support a picture in which galaxy formation is driven predominantly by the mass of the host dark matter halo, and is nearly independent of the larger-scale halo environment. Further, they demonstrate that LCDM, combined with a straightforward bias model, naturally explains the existence of the void phenomenon.