Baryonic feedback remains one of the largest uncertainties in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, with different prescriptions producing divergent predictions for the fraction of gas expelled from halos, the radial extent of the gas expulsion and the impact on large scale matter clustering. We present the first systematic study of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect across a wide range of simulations (FLAMINGO, ANTILLES, BAHAMAS, SIMBA, FABLE and their variants), and compare them directly to DESI Year 1 + ACT kSZ measurements. We ensure a like-for-like comparison with observations by developing a robust methodology that accounts for the halo mass selection using galaxy-galaxy lensing, cosmic variance, miscentering and satellites, establishing the kSZ effect as a new benchmark for the simulations. We find that fiducial feedback models are disfavoured by >3 sigma, while simulations with more powerful AGN feedback within the FLAMINGO and BAHAMAS suites, as well as SIMBA, reproduce the observed kSZ signal within <2 sigma. We use the ANTILLES simulation suite to demonstrate that the amplitude of the kSZ effect is a strong predictor of matter power spectrum suppression, competitive with baryon fraction metrics. These results establish the kSZ as a critical probe for evaluating feedback physics and for advancing the fidelity of cosmological simulations.

Modeling galaxy formation in a cosmological context presents one of the greatest challenges in astrophysics today, due to the vast range of scales and numerous physical processes involved. Here we review the current status of models that employ two leading techniques to simulate the physics of galaxy formation: semi-analytic models and numerical hydrodynamic simulations. We focus on a set of observational targets that describe the evolution of the global and structural properties of galaxies from roughly Cosmic High Noon ($z\sim 2-3$) to the present. Although minor discrepancies remain, overall, models show remarkable convergence between different methods and make predictions that are in qualitative agreement with observations. Modelers seem to have converged on a core set of physical processes that are critical for shaping galaxy properties. This core set includes cosmological accretion, strong stellar-driven winds that are more efficient at low masses, black hole feedback that preferentially suppresses star formation at high masses, and structural and morphological evolution through merging and environmental processes. However, all cosmological models currently adopt phenomenological implementations of many of these core processes, which must be tuned to observations. Many details of how these diverse processes interact within a hierarchical structure formation setting remain poorly understood. Emerging multi-scale simulations are helping to bridge the gap between stellar and cosmological scales, placing models on a firmer, more physically grounded footing. Concurrently, upcoming telescope facilities will provide new challenges and constraints for models, particularly by directly constraining inflows and outflows through observations of gas in and around galaxies.

We present the Cosmology and Astrophysics with MachinE Learning Simulations (CAMELS) Multifield Dataset, CMD, a collection of hundreds of thousands of 2D maps and 3D grids containing many different properties of cosmic gas, dark matter, and stars from 2,000 distinct simulated universes at several cosmic times. The 2D maps and 3D grids represent cosmic regions that span $\sim$100 million light years and have been generated from thousands of state-of-the-art hydrodynamic and gravity-only N-body simulations from the CAMELS project. Designed to train machine learning models, CMD is the largest dataset of its kind containing more than 70 Terabytes of data. In this paper we describe CMD in detail and outline a few of its applications. We focus our attention on one such task, parameter inference, formulating the problems we face as a challenge to the community. We release all data and provide further technical details at this https URL.

The Hydrogen Intensity and Real-time Analysis eXperiment (HIRAX) is a new 400-800MHz radio interferometer under development for deployment in South Africa. HIRAX will comprise 1024 six meter parabolic dishes on a compact grid and will map most of the southern sky over the course of four years. HIRAX has two primary science goals: to constrain Dark Energy and measure structure at high redshift, and to study radio transients and pulsars. HIRAX will observe unresolved sources of neutral hydrogen via their redshifted 21-cm emission line (`hydrogen intensity mapping'). The resulting maps of large-scale structure at redshifts 0.8-2.5 will be used to measure Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO). HIRAX will improve upon current BAO measurements from galaxy surveys by observing a larger cosmological volume (larger in both survey area and redshift range) and by measuring BAO at higher redshift when the expansion of the universe transitioned to Dark Energy domination. HIRAX will complement CHIME, a hydrogen intensity mapping experiment in the Northern Hemisphere, by completing the sky coverage in the same redshift range. HIRAX's location in the Southern Hemisphere also allows a variety of cross-correlation measurements with large-scale structure surveys at many wavelengths. Daily maps of a few thousand square degrees of the Southern Hemisphere, encompassing much of the Milky Way galaxy, will also open new opportunities for discovering and monitoring radio transients. The HIRAX correlator will have the ability to rapidly and eXperimentciently detect transient events. This new data will shed light on the poorly understood nature of fast radio bursts (FRBs), enable pulsar monitoring to enhance long-wavelength gravitational wave searches, and provide a rich data set for new radio transient phenomena searches. This paper discusses the HIRAX instrument, science goals, and current status.

We introduce xCOLD GASS, a legacy survey providing a census of molecular gas in the local Universe. Building upon the original COLD GASS survey, we present here the full sample of 532 galaxies with CO(1-0) measurements from the IRAM-30m telescope. The sample is mass-selected in the redshift interval $0.0110^9$M$_{\odot}$. The CO(1-0) flux measurements are complemented by observations of the CO(2-1) line with both the IRAM-30m and APEX telescopes, HI observations from Arecibo, and photometry from SDSS, WISE and GALEX. Combining the IRAM and APEX data, we find that the CO(2-1) to CO(1-0) luminosity ratio for integrated measurements is $r_{21}=0.79\pm0.03$, with no systematic variations across the sample. The CO(1-0) luminosity function is constructed and best fit with a Schechter function with parameters {$L_{\mathrm{CO}}^* = (7.77\pm2.11) \times 10^9\,\mathrm{K\,km\,s^{-1}\, pc^{2}}$, $\phi^{*} = (9.84\pm5.41) \times 10^{-4} \, \mathrm{Mpc^{-3}}$ and $\alpha = -1.19\pm0.05$}. With the sample now complete down to stellar masses of $10^9$M$_{\odot}$, we are able to extend our study of gas scaling relations and confirm that both molecular gas fraction and depletion timescale vary with specific star formation rate (or offset from the star-formation main sequence) much more strongly than they depend on stellar mass. Comparing the xCOLD GASS results with outputs from hydrodynamic and semi-analytic models, we highlight the constraining power of cold gas scaling relations on models of galaxy formation.

Although galactic winds play a critical role in regulating galaxy formation, hydrodynamic cosmological simulations do not resolve the scales that govern the interaction between winds and the ambient circumgalactic medium (CGM). We implement the Physically Evolved Wind (PhEW) model of Huang et al. (2020) in the GIZMO hydrodynamics code and perform test cosmological simulations with different choices of model parameters and numerical resolution. PhEW adopts an explicit subgrid model that treats each wind particle as a collection of clouds that exchange mass, metals, and momentum with their surroundings and evaporate by conduction and hydrodynamic instabilities as calibrated on much higher resolution cloud scale simulations. In contrast to a conventional wind algorithm, we find that PhEW results are robust to numerical resolution and implementation details because the small scale interactions are defined by the model itself. Compared to conventional wind simulations with the same resolution, our PhEW simulations produce similar galaxy stellar mass functions at $z\geq 1$ but are in better agreement with low-redshift observations at M_* &lt; 10^{11}M_\odot because PhEW particles shed mass to the CGM before escaping low mass halos. PhEW radically alters the CGM metal distribution because PhEW particles disperse metals to the ambient medium as their clouds dissipate, producing a CGM metallicity distribution that is skewed but unimodal and is similar between cold and hot gas. While the temperature distributions and radial profiles of gaseous halos are similar in simulations with PhEW and conventional winds, these changes in metal distribution will affect their predicted UV/X-ray properties in absorption and emission.

We examine the properties of the low-redshift circumgalactic medium (CGM) around star-forming and quenched galaxies in the Simba cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, focusing on comparing HI and metal line absorption to observations from the COS-Halos and COS-Dwarfs surveys. Halo baryon fractions are generally $\lesssim 50\%$ of the cosmic fraction due to stellar feedback at low masses, and jet-mode AGN feedback at high masses. Baryons and metals in the CGM of quenched galaxies are $\gtrsim 90\%$ hot gas, while the CGM of star-forming galaxies is more multi-phase. Hot CGM gas has low metallicity, while warm and cool CGM gas have metallicity close to that of galactic gas. Equivalent widths, covering fractions and total path absorption of HI and selected metal lines (MgII, SiIII, CIV and OVI) around a matched sample of Simba star-forming galaxies are mostly consistent with COS-Halos and COS-Dwarfs observations to $\lesssim 0.4$~dex, depending on ion and assumed ionising background. Around matched quenched galaxies, absorption in all ions is lower, with HI absorption significantly under-predicted. Metal-line absorption is sensitive to choice of photo-ionising background; assuming recent backgrounds, Simba matches OVI but under-predicts low ions, while an older background matches low ions but under-predicts OVI. Simba reproduces the observed dichotomy of OVI absorption around star forming and quenched galaxies. CGM metals primarily come from stellar feedback, while jet-mode AGN feedback reduces absorption particularly for lower ions.

High-redshift Lyman-alpha blobs (LABs) are an enigmatic class of objects that have been the subject of numerous observational and theoretical investigations. It is of particular interest to determine the dominant power sources for the copious luminosity, as direct emission from HII regions, cooling gas, and fluorescence due to the presence of active galactic nuclei (AGN) can all contribute significantly. In this paper, we present the first theoretical model to consider all of these physical processes in an attempt to develop an evolutionary model for the origin of high-z LABs. This is achieved by combining a series of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations with ionization and Lyman-alpha (Lya) radiative transfer models. We find that massive galaxies display a range of Lya luminosities and spatial extents (which strongly depend on the limiting surface brightness used) over the course of their lives, though regularly exhibit luminosities and sizes consistent with observed LABs. The model LABs are typically powered from a combination of recombination in star-forming galaxies, as well as cooling emission from gas associated with accretion. When AGN are included in the model, the fluorescence caused by AGN-driven ionization can be a significant contributor to the total Lya luminosity as well. We propose that the presence of an AGN may be predicted from the Gini coefficient of the blob's surface brightness. Within our modeled mass range, there are no obvious threshold physical properties that predict appearance of LABs, and only weak correlations of the luminosity with the physical properties of the host galaxy. This is because the emergent Lya luminosity from a system is a complex function of the gas temperature, ionization state, and Lya escape fraction.

We present a study exploring the nature and properties of the Circum-Galactic Medium (CGM) and its connection to the atomic gas content in the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies as traced by the HI 21cm line. Our sample includes 45 low-z (0.026-0.049) galaxies from the GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey. Their CGM was probed via absorption in the spectra of background Quasi-Stellar Objects at impact parameters of 63 to 231kpc. The spectra were obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. We detected neutral hydrogen (Ly$\alpha$ absorption-lines) in the CGM of 92% of the galaxies. We find the radial profile of the CGM as traced by the Ly$\alpha$ equivalent width can be fit as an exponential with a scale length of roughly the virial radius of the dark matter halo. We found no correlation between the orientation of sightline relative to the galaxy major axis and the Ly$\alpha$ equivalent width. The velocity spread of the circumgalactic gas is consistent with that seen in the atomic gas in the interstellar medium. We find a strong correlation (99.8% confidence) between the gas fraction (M(HI)/M*) and the impact-parameter-corrected Ly$\alpha$ equivalent width. This is stronger than the analogous correlation between corrected Ly$\alpha$ equivalent width and SFR/M* (97.5% confidence). These results imply a physical connection between the HI disk and the CGM, which is on scales an order-of-magnitude larger. This is consistent with the picture in which the HI disk is nourished by accretion of gas from the CGM.

Galactic winds are a key physical mechanism for understanding galaxy formation and evolution, yet empirical and theoretical constraints for the character of winds are limited and discrepant. Recent empirical models find that local star-forming galaxies have a deficit of oxygen that scales with galaxy stellar mass. The oxygen deficit provides unique empirical constraints on the magnitude of mass loss, composition of outflowing material and metal reaccretion onto galaxies. We formulate the oxygen deficit constraints so they may be easily implemented into theoretical models of galaxy evolution. We parameterize an effective metal loading factor which combines the uncertainties of metal outflows and metal reaccretion into a single function of galaxy virial velocity. We determine the effective metal loading factor by forward-fitting the oxygen deficit. The effective metal loading factor we derive has important implications for the implementation of mass loss in models of galaxy evolution.

We present a model for the dynamical evolution of subhaloes based on an approach combining numerical and analytical methods. Our method is based on tracking subhaloes in an N-body simulation up to the last point that it can be resolved, and applying an analytic prescription for its merger timescale that takes dynamical friction and tidal disruption into account. When applied to cosmological N-body simulations with mass resolutions that differ by two orders of magnitude, the technique produces halo occupation distributions that agree to within 3%.

We present predictions for the evolution of the galaxy dust-to-gas (DGR) and dust-to-metal (DTM) ratios from z=0 to 6, using a model for the production, growth, and destruction of dust grains implemented into the \simba\ cosmological hydrodynamic galaxy formation simulation. In our model, dust forms in stellar ejecta, grows by the accretion of metals, and is destroyed by thermal sputtering and supernovae. Our simulation reproduces the observed dust mass function at z=0, but modestly under-predicts the mass function by ~x3 at z ~ 1-2. The z=0 DGR vs metallicity relationship shows a tight positive correlation for star-forming galaxies, while it is uncorrelated for quenched systems. There is little evolution in the DGR-metallicity relationship between z=0-6. We use machine learning techniques to search for the galaxy physical properties that best correlate with the DGR and DTM. We find that the DGR is primarily correlated with the gas-phase metallicity, though correlations with the depletion timescale, stellar mass and gas fraction are non-negligible. We provide a crude fitting relationship for DGR and DTM vs. the gas-phase metallicity, along with a public code package that estimates the DGR and DTM given a set of galaxy physical properties.

We investigate the impact of the number of filaments connected to the nodes of the cosmic web on the physical properties of their galaxies using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We compare these measurements to the cosmological hydrodynamical simulations Horizon-(no)AGN and Simba. We find that more massive galaxies are more connected, in qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions and measurements in dark matter only simulation. The star formation activity and morphology of observed galaxies both display some dependence on the connectivity of the cosmic web at fixed stellar mass: less star forming and less rotation supported galaxies also tend to have higher connectivity. These results qualitatively hold both for observed and virtual galaxies, and can be understood given that the cosmic web is the main source of fuel for galaxy growth. The simulations show the same trends at fixed halo mass, suggesting that the geometry of filamentary infall impacts galaxy properties beyond the depth of the local potential well. Based on simulations, it is also found that AGN feedback is key in reversing the relationship between stellar mass and connectivity at fixed halo mass. Technically, connectivity is a practical observational proxy for past and present accretion (minor mergers or diffuse infall).

We use the Simba cosmological galaxy formation simulation to investigate the relationship between major mergers ($\leq$ 4:1), starbursts, and galaxy quenching. Mergers are identified via sudden jumps in stellar mass $M_*$ well above that expected from in situ star formation, while quenching is defined as going from specific star formation rate sSFR&gt;t_{H}^{-1} to sSFR&lt;0.2t_{H}^{-1}, where $t_{H}$ is the Hubble time. At $z\approx 0-3$, mergers show $\sim\times 2-3$ higher SFR than a mass-matched sample of star-forming galaxies, but globally represent $\leq 1\%$ of the cosmic SF budget. At low masses, the increase in SFR in mergers is mostly attributed to an increase in the $H_2$ content, but for $M_*\geq 10^{10.5} M_{\odot}$ mergers also show an elevated star formation efficiency suggesting denser gas within merging galaxies. The merger rate for star-forming galaxies shows a rapid increase with redshift $\propto (1+z)^{3.5}$, but the quenching rate evolves much more slowly, $\propto (1+z)^{0.9}$; there are insufficient mergers to explain the quenching rate at $z\leq 1.5$. Simba first quenches galaxies at $z\geq 3$, with a number density in good agreement with observations. The quenching timescales $\tau_q$ are strongly bimodal, with `slow' quenchings ($\tau_q \sim 0.1t_{H}$) dominating overall, but `fast' quenchings ($\tau_q\sim 0.01 t_H$) dominating in $M_*\sim 10^{10}-10^{10.5}M_{\odot}$ galaxies, likely induced by Simba's jet-mode black hole feedback. The delay time distribution between mergers and quenching events suggests no physical connection to either fast or slow quenching. Hence, Simba predicts that major mergers induce starbursts, but are unrelated to quenching in either fast or slow mode.

In this study, we examine the role of circumgalactic medium (CGM) angular momentum ($j_{\rm CGM}$) on star formation in galaxies, whose influence is currently not well understood. The analysis utilises central galaxies from two hydrodynamical simulations, SIMBA and IllustrisTNG. We observe a substantial divergence in how star formation rates correlate with CGM angular momentum between the two simulations. Specifically, quenched galaxies in IllustrisTNG show high $j_{\rm CGM}$, while in SIMBA, quenched galaxies have low $j_{\rm CGM}$. This difference is attributed to the distinct active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback mechanisms active in each simulation. Moreover, both simulations demonstrate similar correlations between $j_{\rm CGM}$ and environmental angular momentum ($j_{\rm Env}$) in star-forming galaxies, but these correlations change notably when kinetic AGN feedback is present. In IllustrisTNG, quenched galaxies consistently show higher $j_{\rm CGM}$ compared to their star-forming counterparts with the same $j_{\rm Env}$, a trend not seen in SIMBA. Examining different AGN feedback models in SIMBA, we further confirm that AGN feedback significantly influences the CGM gas distribution, although the relationship between the cold gas fraction and the star formation rate (SFR) remains largely stable across different feedback scenarios.

We update the dust model present within the Simba galaxy simulations with a self-consistent framework for the co-evolution of dust and molecular hydrogen populations in the interstellar medium, and use this to explore $z \geq 6$ galaxy evolution. In addition to tracking the evolution of dust and molecular hydrogen abundances, our model fully integrates these species into the Simba simulation, explicitly modelling their impact on physical processes such as star formation and cooling through the inclusion of a novel two-phase sub-grid model for interstellar gas. In running two high-resolution simulations down to $z \sim 6$ we find that our Simba-EoR model displays a generally tighter concordance with observational data than fiducial Simba. Additionally we observe that our Simba-EoR models increase star formation activity at early epochs, producing larger dust-to-gas ratios consequently. Finally, we discover a significant population of hot dust at $\sim 100$ K, aligning with contemporaneous observations of high-redshift dusty galaxies, alongside the large $\sim 20$ K population typically identified.

We explore the cosmic evolution of the fraction of dust obscured star formation predicted by the \textsc{simba} cosmological hydrodynamic simulations featuring an on-the-fly model for dust formation, evolution, and destruction. We find that up to $z=2$, our results are broadly consistent with previous observational results of little to no evolution in obscured star formation. However, at $z>2$ we find strong evolution at fixed galaxy stellar mass towards greater amounts of obscured star formation. We explain the trend of increasing obscuration at higher redshifts by greater typical dust column densities along the line of sight to young stars. We additionally see that at a fixed redshift, more massive galaxies have a higher fraction of their star formation obscured, which is explained by increased dust mass fractions at higher stellar masses. Finally, we estimate the contribution of dust-obscured star formation to the total star formation rate budget and find that the dust obscured star formation history (SFH) peaks around $z\sim 2-3$, and becomes subdominant at $z\gtrsim 5$.

We present a comparison of galaxy atomic and molecular gas properties in three recent cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, Simba, EAGLE, and Illustris-TNG, versus observations from $z\sim 0-2$. These simulations all rely on similar sub-resolution prescriptions to model cold interstellar gas which they cannot represent directly, and qualitatively reproduce the observed $z\approx 0$ HI and H$_2$ mass functions (HIMF, H2MF), CO(1-0) luminosity functions (COLF), and gas scaling relations versus stellar mass, specific star formation rate, and stellar surface density $\mu_*$, with some quantitative differences. To compare to the COLF, we apply an H$_2$-to-CO conversion factor to the simulated galaxies based on their average molecular surface density and metallicity, yielding substantial variations in $\alpha_{\rm CO}$ and significant differences between models. Using this, predicted $z=0$ COLFs agree better with data than predicted H2MFs. Out to $z\sim 2$, EAGLE's and Simba's HIMF and COLF strongly increase, while TNG's HIMF declines and COLF evolves slowly. EAGLE and Simba reproduce high $L_{\rm CO1-0}$ galaxies at $z\sim 1-2$ as observed, owing partly to a median $\alpha_{\rm CO}(z=2)\sim 1$ versus $\alpha_{\rm CO}(z=0)\sim 3$. Examining \HI, H$_2$, and CO scaling relations, their trends with $M_*$ are broadly reproduced in all models, but EAGLE yields too little HI in green valley galaxies, TNG and Simba overproduce cold gas in massive galaxies, and Simba overproduces molecular gas in small systems. Using Simba variants that exclude individual AGN feedback modules, we find that Simba's AGN jet feedback is primarily responsible by lowering cold gas contents from $z\sim 1\to0$ by suppressing cold gas in $M_*> 10^{10}{\rm M}_\odot$ galaxies, while X-ray feedback suppresses the formation of high-$\mu_*$ systems.

Recent models of black hole growth in a cosmological context have forwarded a paradigm in which the growth is self-regulated by feedback from the black hole itself. Here we use cosmological zoom simulations of galaxy formation down to z = 2 to show that such strong self-regulation is required in the popular spherical Bondi accretion model, but that a plausible alternative model in which black hole growth is limited by galaxy-scale torques does not require self-regulation. Instead, this torque-limited accretion model yields black holes and galaxies evolving on average along the observed scaling relations by relying only on a fixed, 5% mass retention rate onto the black hole from the radius at which the accretion flow is fed. Feedback from the black hole may (and likely does) occur, but does not need to couple to galaxy-scale gas in order to regulate black hole growth. We show that this result is insensitive to variations in the initial black hole mass, stellar feedback, or other implementation details. The torque-limited model allows for high accretion rates at very early epochs (unlike the Bondi case), which if viable can help explain the rapid early growth of black holes, while by z = 2 it yields Eddington factors of 1%-10%. This model also yields a less direct correspondence between major merger events and rapid phases of black hole growth. Instead, growth is more closely tied to cosmological disk feeding, which may help explain observational studies showing that, at least at z > 1, active galaxies do not preferentially show merger signatures.