"Ab initio" models of galaxy formation: successes and open problems

TL;DR

This review discusses various methods, especially semi-analytic models, for understanding galaxy formation within dark matter haloes, highlighting recent successes and unresolved challenges in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of galaxy formation modeling techniques, emphasizing semi-analytic models, and summarizes recent progress and remaining open issues.

Findings

Semi-analytic models successfully reproduce many galaxy properties.

Open problems include accurately modeling feedback processes.

Recent models have improved understanding of galaxy-dark matter halo connections.

Abstract

In the past decades, different approaches have been developed in order to link the physical properties of galaxies to the dark matter haloes in which they reside. In this review, I give a brief overview of methods, aims, and limits of these techniques, with particular emphasis on semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. For these models, I also provide a brief summary of recent successes and open problems.