Redshift Evolution of the Intrinsic Alignments of Early-Type Galaxies and Subhalos in the Horizon Run 5 Simulation

TL;DR

This study uses the Horizon Run 5 simulation to analyze how the intrinsic alignments of early-type galaxies and subhalos evolve with redshift, revealing that galaxy alignments stay constant while subhalo alignments change moderately over time.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the redshift evolution of intrinsic alignments of galaxies and subhalos, including dependencies on stellar mass and morphology, using a large cosmological hydrodynamic simulation.

Findings

Galaxy-subhalo misalignment decreases over time.

Galaxy intrinsic alignment amplitude remains constant with redshift.

Subhalo alignment amplitude shows significant redshift evolution.

Abstract

We investigate the redshift evolution of intrinsic alignments of the shapes of galaxies and subhalos with the large-scale structures of the universe using the cosmological hydrodynamic simulation, $\textit{Horizon Run 5}$. To this end, early-type galaxies are selected from the simulated galaxy catalogs based on stellar mass and kinematic morphology. The shapes of galaxies and subhalos are computed using the reduced inertia tensor derived from mass-weighted particle positions. We find that the misalignment between galaxies and their corresponding dark-matter subhalos decreases over time. We further analyze the two-point correlation between galaxy or subhalo shapes and the large-scale density field traced by their spatial distribution, and quantify the amplitude using the nonlinear alignment model across a wide redshift range from $z = 0.625$ to $z = 2.5$. We find that the intrinsic alignment amplitude, $A_{\rm NLA}$, of galaxies remains largely constant with redshift, whereas that of dark matter subhalos exhibits moderate redshift evolution, with a power-law slope that deviates from zero at a significance level exceeding $3\sigma$. Additionally, $A_{\rm NLA}$ is found to depend on both the stellar mass and kinematic morphology of galaxies. Notably, our results are broadly consistent with existing observational constraints. Our findings are in good agreement with previous results of other cosmological simulations.