CASCO: Cosmological and AStrophysical parameters from Cosmological simulations and Observations -- I. Constraining physical processes in local star-forming galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses cosmological simulations and observations of star-forming galaxies to constrain cosmological and astrophysical parameters, finding consistency with some cosmological data and highlighting discrepancies in dark matter content predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to constrain cosmological and astrophysical parameters by comparing simulation properties with observed galaxy data, providing new bounds on these parameters.

Findings

Cosmological parameters are consistent with WMAP results.

Lower outflow wind energy per star formation better matches observations.

Simba and ASTRID simulations predict dark matter masses larger than observed.

Abstract

We compare the structural properties and dark matter content of star-forming galaxies taken from the CAMELS cosmological simulations to the observed trends derived from the SPARC sample in the stellar mass range $[10^{9}, 10^{11}]\,\textrm{M}_{\odot}$, to provide constraints on the value of cosmological and astrophysical (SN- and AGN-related) parameters. We consider the size-, internal DM fraction-, internal DM mass- and total-stellar mass relations for all the 1065 simulations from the IllustrisTNG, SIMBA and ASTRID suites of CAMELS, and search for the parameters that minimize the $\chi^{2}$ with respect to the observations. For the IllustrisTNG suite, we find the following constraints for the cosmological parameters: $\Omega_{\textrm{m}} = 0.27_{-0.05}^{+0.01}$, $\sigma_{8} = 0.83_{-0.11}^{+0.08}$ and $S_{8} = 0.78_{-0.09}^{+0.03}$, which are consistent within $1\sigma$ with the results from the nine-year WMAP observations. SN feedback-related astrophysical parameters, which describe the departure of outflow wind energy per unit star formation rate and wind velocity from the reference IllustrisTNG simulations, assume the following values: $A_{\textrm{SN1}} = 0.48_{-0.16}^{+0.25}$ and $A_{\textrm{SN2}} = 1.21_{-0.34}^{+0.03}$, respectively. Therefore, simulations with a lower value of outflow wind energy per unit star formation rate with respect to the reference illustrisTNG simulation better reproduce the observations. Simulations based on SIMBA and ASTRID suites predict central dark matter masses substantially larger than those observed in real galaxies, which can be reconciled with observations only by requiring values of $\Omega_{\textrm{m}}$ inconsistent with cosmological constraints for SIMBA, or simulations characterized by unrealistic galaxy mass distributions for ASTRID.