The AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. III: Cosmological zoom-in simulation of a Milky Way-mass halo

TL;DR

This paper compares high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations of a Milky Way-mass halo across seven different astrophysical codes, demonstrating that with proper calibration, results are consistent and reproducible in galaxy formation studies.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed calibration process for simulation codes, enabling consistent and comparable high-resolution galaxy formation simulations across different software.

Findings

Codes agree well on gas and stellar properties.

Differences observed in circumgalactic medium properties.

Calibration steps improve reproducibility of simulation results.

Abstract

We present a suite of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations to $z=4$ of a $10^{12}\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$ halo at $z=0$, obtained using seven contemporary astrophysical simulation codes widely used in the numerical galaxy formation community. Physics prescriptions for gas cooling, heating, and star formation, are similar to the ones used in our previous {\it AGORA} disk comparison but now account for the effects of cosmological processes. In this work, we introduce the most careful comparison yet of galaxy formation simulations run by different code groups, together with a series of four calibration steps each of which is designed to reduce the number of tunable simulation parameters adopted in the final run. After all the participating code groups successfully completed the calibration steps, we reach a suite of cosmological simulations with similar mass assembly histories down to $z=4$. With numerical accuracy that resolves the internal structure of a target halo, we find that the codes overall agree well with one another in e.g., gas and stellar properties, but also show differences in e.g., circumgalactic medium properties. We argue that, if adequately tested in accordance with our proposed calibration steps and common parameters, the results of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations can be robust and reproducible. New code groups are invited to join this comparison by generating equivalent models by adopting the common initial conditions, the common easy-to-implement physics package, and the proposed calibration steps. Further analyses of the simulations presented here will be in forthcoming reports from our Collaboration.