Galaxy formation in the brane world I: overview and first results

TL;DR

This paper presents hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation within the nDGP braneworld model, revealing significant differences from standard gravity in matter clustering and galaxy properties, and exploring baryonic effects in modified gravity.

Contribution

First to simulate galaxy formation in nDGP models with baryonic physics, analyzing their impact on matter clustering and galaxy evolution compared to GR.

Findings

Up to 25% differences in matter power spectra between nDGP and GR.

Baryonic effects significantly influence matter clustering, depending on scale.

Disentangling modified gravity from baryonic feedback is feasible with the proposed method.

Abstract

We carry out ``full-physics'' hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation in the normal-branch Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (nDGP) braneworld model using a new modified version of the {\sc Arepo} code and the IllustrisTNG galaxy formation model. We simulate two nDGP models (N5 and N1) which represent, respectively, weak and moderate departures from GR, in boxes of sizes $62\,h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ and $25\,h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ using $2\times512^3$ dark matter particles and initial gas cells. This allows us to explore, for the first time, the impact of baryonic physics on galactic scales in braneworld models of modified gravity and to make predictions on the stellar content of dark matter haloes and galaxy evolution through cosmic time in these models. We find significant differences between the GR and nDGP models in the power spectra and correlation functions of gas, stars and dark matter of up to $\sim 25$ per cent on large scales. Similar to their impact in the standard cosmological model ($\Lambda$CDM), baryonic effects can have a significant influence over the clustering of the overall matter distribution, with a sign that depends on scale. Studying the degeneracy between modified gravity and galactic feedback in these models, we find that these two physical effects on matter clustering can be cleanly disentangled, allowing for a method to accurately predict the matter power spectrum with baryonic effects included, without having to run hydrodynamical simulations. Depending on the braneworld model, we find differences compared with GR of up to $\sim15$ per cent in galaxy properties such as the stellar-to-halo-mass ratio, galaxy stellar mass function, gas fraction and star formation rate density. The amplitude of the fifth force is reduced by the presence of baryons in the very inner part of haloes, but this reduction quickly becomes negligible above $\sim0.1$ times the halo radius.