How do galaxy properties affect void statistics?

TL;DR

This study investigates how galaxy properties like luminosity and star formation rate influence void statistics, finding that luminosity-selected galaxy voids are consistent with halo-based voids, unlike star formation rate-selected galaxy voids.

Contribution

It demonstrates that voids from luminosity-selected galaxies can be reliably modeled using dark matter halos, clarifying the impact of galaxy property selection on void statistics.

Findings

Luminosity-selected galaxy voids match halo-based voids within errors.

Star formation rate-selected galaxy voids differ from halo-based voids.

Galaxy property selection affects void catalog consistency.

Abstract

Using a mapping from dark matter halos to galaxy properties based on hydrodynamical simulations, we explore the impact of galaxy properties on the void size function and the void-galaxy correlation function. We replicate the properties of galaxies from Illustris on MassiveNus halos, to perform both luminosity and star formation rate cuts on MassiveNus halos. We compare the impact of such cuts on voids properties with respect to cuts on halo mass (as usually performed on halo catalogs driven from N-body simulations). We find that void catalogs built from luminosity-selected galaxies and halos are consistent within errors, while void catalogs built from star formation rate selected galaxies differ from void catalogs built on halos. We investigate the reason for this difference. Our work suggests that voids built on galaxy catalogs (selected through luminosity cut) can be reliably studied by using halos in dark matter simulations.