Galactification: painting galaxies onto dark matter only simulations using a transformer-based model
Shivam Pandey, Christopher C. Lovell, Chirag Modi, Benjamin D. Wandelt

TL;DR
This paper introduces a transformer-based model that rapidly generates realistic galaxy catalogs from dark matter simulations, accurately capturing galaxy properties and distributions for cosmological studies.
Contribution
The paper presents the first accelerated forward model using transformers that reproduces detailed galaxy properties and spatial distributions conditioned on dark matter simulations.
Findings
Faithfully reproduces galaxy summary statistics
Captures variation with cosmological parameters
Provides a fast alternative to hydrodynamical simulations
Abstract
Connecting the formation and evolution of galaxies to the large-scale structure is crucial for interpreting cosmological observations. While hydrodynamical simulations accurately model the correlated properties of galaxies, they are computationally prohibitive to run over volumes that match modern surveys. We address this by developing a framework to rapidly generate mock galaxy catalogs conditioned on inexpensive dark-matter-only simulations. We present a multi-modal, transformer-based model that takes 3D dark matter density and velocity fields as input, and outputs a corresponding point cloud of galaxies with their physical properties. We demonstrate that our trained model faithfully reproduces a variety of galaxy summary statistics and correctly captures their variation with changes in the underlying cosmological and astrophysical parameters, making it the first accelerated forward…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsGalaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena · Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
