Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed unexpectedly luminous galaxies, exhibiting stellar masses and luminosities significantly higher than predicted by theoretical models at Cosmic Dawn. In this study, we present a suite of cosmological zoomed-in simulations targeting high-redshift (z >= 10) galaxies with dark matter halo masses in the range 1010-1011M circle dot at z = 10, using state-of-the-art galaxy formation simulation codes (Enzo, Ramses, Changa, Gadget-3, Gadget-4, and Gizmo). This study aims to evaluate the convergence of the participating codes and their reproducibility of high-redshift galaxies with the galaxy formation model calibrated at relatively low redshift, without additional physics for high-redshift environments. The subgrid physics follows the AGORA CosmoRun framework, with adjustments to resolution and initial conditions to emulate similar physical environments in the early Universe. The participating codes show consistent results for key galaxy properties (e.g., stellar mass), but also reveal notable differences (e.g., metallicity), indicating that galaxy properties at high redshifts are highly sensitive to the feedback implementation of the simulation. Massive halos (Mhalo >= 5 & times; 1010 M circle dot at z = 10) succeed in reproducing observed stellar masses, metallicities, and UV luminosities at 10 <= z <= 12 without requiring additional subgrid physics, but tend to underpredict those properties at higher redshift. We also find that varying the dust-to-metal ratio modestly affects UV luminosity of simulated galaxies, whereas the absence of dust significantly enhances it. In future work, higher-resolution simulations will be conducted to better understand the formation and evolution of galaxies at Cosmic Dawn.
Galaxy mergers, with their high sensitivity to initial conditions, provide a valuable setting for comparative studies of galaxy simulation codes. Following our first paper focusing on merger-driven star formation, we present a code comparison examining the morphological transformation impact of a major galaxy merger at z ≈ 4.5 on a Milky Way-mass galaxy progenitor. Our analysis employs nine state-of-the-art codes from the AGORA CosmoRun cosmological zoom-in simulation suite. For this merger, we show that the adopted stellar feedback type influences the galaxy's compaction and stellar disc formation. Codes with purely thermal feedback produce a merger remnant that forms a disc and becomes compact primarily during and after coalescence; codes that include kinetic feedback begin disc formation and compaction around the first periapsis; and codes with strong delayed cooling or superbubble feedback suppress disc formation and produce a more extended remnant. In contrast, the orientation of the remnant disc is code-independent. In all codes, the rotational angular momentum of the remnant disc aligns with the interaction's orbital angular momentum rather than the pre-merger rotational axis, implying that the infalling gas preserves its orbital angular momentum to form a new disc. Comparisons with the Santa Cruz semi-analytic model show reasonable agreement in stellar mass and half-mass radius, yet the model underpredicts (overpredicts) the dark matter fraction and velocity dispersion for codes exhibiting strong compaction (expansion). The systematic dependence of our remnants' morphology on feedback schemes demonstrates that merger remnant morphology may serve as a powerful probe of stellar feedback processes.
Given their highly nonlinear dynamics and sensitivity to initial conditions, galaxy mergers are a compelling area to conduct a simulation code comparison. We perform a comparative study of a major galaxy merger at z ≈ 4.5 in cosmological zoom-in hydrodynamic simulations of a Milky Way-mass galaxy progenitor. The comparison employs the AGORA CosmoRun suite of nine well-calibrated, state-of-the-art numerical codes, each adopting a different stellar feedback scheme. We find that the evolution of the star formation rate (SFR) during the interaction is strongly shaped by the stellar feedback type. Using kinetic feedback in the feedback model drives a pronounced merger-induced starburst that starts to subside before coalescence; using thermal feedback without kinetic feedback yields prolonged SFR growth even after coalescence; and using delayed cooling or radiation pressure results in highly fluctuating SFR. Tracking gas particles in particle-based codes reveals that kinetic feedback facilitates gas inflow from the secondary galaxy onto the primary galaxy between the first periapsis and apoapsis, thus producing an earlier and more prominent starburst. In contrast, thermal feedback, augmented by superbubble or delayed-cooling feedback, suppresses gas cooling, creates a more extended gas distribution, and hinders strong starbursts during the merger. We also observe an inverse correlation between burst fraction and pre-merger gas fraction that is independent of feedback models. Overall, these results highlight the sensitivity of simulated galaxy mergers' star formation response to stellar feedback prescriptions. This study indicates that galaxy mergers may serve as a good testbed for stellar feedback processes in cosmological simulations.
We leverage the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulations to test how the large-scale cosmic web shapes galaxy morphology and to forecast the early cosmic web structure that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will reveal. In the hydrodynamic TNG50 and N -body TNG50-Dark runs, we reconstruct the cosmic web at redshifts z = 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, and 4 with the Monte Carlo Physarum Machine density estimator and the DisPerSE structure identification framework. We confirm that dark matter halos start out predominantly prolate (elongated), and their shapes are aligned with their nearest filaments; prolate galaxies retain strong shape alignment with their outer halos to later times. At z ≥ 1, the fraction of prolate (spheroidal) halos increases (decreases) toward lower stellar mass, higher redshift, and lower filament density. At z < 1, more spheroidal (oblate) stellar structures preferentially reside in higher-density (lower-density) filaments. We also find that higher-density filaments favor extended rotationally supported disks, whereas lower-density filaments more often host smaller dispersion-supported systems. Then, generating mock galaxy samples from TNG100 and TNG50, we predict the early cosmic web accessible to Roman. We find that the spectroscopic emission-line depth planned for the High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey (HLWAS) yields a highly incomplete galaxy sample that does not accurately trace the z = 1 cosmic web. A survey ≥2.5× deeper over a few square degrees would enable a proper reconstruction and reveal qualitatively correct filament–galaxy morphology relationships. Nevertheless, the planned HLWAS Deep field should still identify most galaxy overdensities; targeted deeper spectroscopy of these regions would efficiently and adequately map the early filamentary structure.
We present a comprehensive analysis of the radial dark-matter (DM) density profiles of cosmic filaments in the hydrodynamical simulation TNG50. The cosmic web is extracted from high-resolution density grids at redshifts z = 0, 0.5, 1, 2 and 3 using the DisPerSE algorithm. We show that the filament spine locations returned directly by DisPerSE do not accurately reflect the true density ridges. To address this issue, we introduce a "shrinking-cylinder" re-centering algorithm, which significantly increases the inferred central densities and restores the inner power-law behavior of the profiles. When the radial coordinate is scaled by the virial radii of the terminal nodes, the filament density profiles exhibit a nearly universal form that depends only weakly on redshift, node mass, and filament length. This result suggests that cosmic filaments, much like dark-matter halos, obey a form of structural self-similarity once an appropriate characteristic scale is introduced. By repeating the measurement using only smoothly distributed, unbound DM particles, we find that the apparent central cusp of the full profile is primarily produced by low-mass halos embedded along the filament spines, while the smooth component develops a flat core within R/R_ vir≲0.1. The redshift evolution of this smooth component further suggests a transition from predominantly smooth filamentary accretion at high redshift to increasingly clumpy accretion at late times. Finally, we show that the universal filament profile is accurately described by a generalized triple-power-law model.
We present far-ultraviolet (FUV) images and catalogs from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys/Solar Blind Channel (ACS/SBC) F150LP (about 1600 Angstrom) of three extragalactic fields: GOODS-S, GOODS-N, and COSMOS. The data comprise 365 orbits of high-resolution imaging of 151 pointings covering an area of 44.7 square arcmin to typical depths of FUV about 28.7 AB (3-sigma, 0.5 arcsec diameter aperture). We provide a new model of the spatially varying dark "glow" created from all 365 orbits of data, and scale and subtract it from all pointings. We provide drizzled image mosaics, weight maps, and exposure time maps matched in coordinates and pixel scale to the Hubble Legacy Fields (HLF) frame, and the original COSMOS tiles. Galaxy photometry is measured within isophotes defined with existing deep Hubble F606W or F814W optical filters. We detect 1068 galaxies and provide catalogs of all optical detections, including matched IDs to existing 3D-HST and CANDELS catalogs. The redshift distribution of FUV-detected galaxies peaks at z about 0.6 and declines to z = 1.2, where the Lyman limit shifts redward of any filter transmission. These data fill the redshift gap of high-resolution far-UV imaging between z about 0 and z > 1, enabling studies of star-forming regions, dust properties, the FUV extragalactic background, and Lyman continuum emission from galaxies at z > 1.2.
We introduce a halo solving and tracking procedure that intrinsically treats dark matter halos as non-spherical objects by leveraging the bound particle searching techniques used in Haskap Pie. The AGORA Collaboration's hydrodynamic simulation CosmoRun}project provides a useful laboratory to explore trends in dark matter halo morphology that are revealed by our new procedure in the context of any dispersions or similarities between the codes. We find that several morphological and shape measures were very responsive to high mass ratio mergers. The greatest difference in these measures between the simulation codes were related to timing discrepancies and the dynamical state of the halos prior to the mergers. Most other quantities were similar across codes, including several secular and redshift-dependent trends in various dynamical quantities that showed a departure from Virial Theorem (e.g., overdensity and halo mass). We find that halo spin and the ratio between the semi-major and the semi-minor axis peaked at 4>z>2 before declining at low redshift. Also, halo overdensity is both mass-dependent and redshift-dependent, diverging for low mass halos at low redshift. Our method contributes a new perspective on these trends that have not been fully replicated in other works due to our emphasis on fundamentally non-spherical halos and measures of morphology that correspondingly do not assume spherical symmetry.
We address the formation of giant clumps in violently unstable gas-rich disc galaxies at cosmic noon. While these are commonly thought to originate from gravitational Toomre instability, some cosmological simulations have indicated that clumps can form in Lagrangian proto-clump regions where the Toomre Q parameter is well above unity, which are linearly stable. Examining one of these cosmological simulations, we find that it exhibits an excess in compressive modes of turbulence with converging motions. The energy in converging motions within proto-clumps is similar to 70 per cent of the total turbulent energy, compared to similar to 17 per cent expected in equipartition. When averaged over the whole disc, similar to 40 per cent of the turbulent energy is in compressive modes, mostly in converging motions, with the rest in solenoidal modes, compared to the (1/3) - (2/3) division expected in equipartition. By contrast, we find that in an isolated-disc simulation with similar properties, resembling high-z star-forming galaxies, the different turbulence modes are in equipartition, both in proto-clumps and over the whole disc. We conclude that the origin of excessive converging motions in proto-clumps is external to the disc, and propose several mechanisms that can induce them. This is an additional mechanism for clump formation, complementary to and possibly preceding gravitational instability.
We investigate how differences in the stellar feedback produce disks with different morphologies in Milky Way–like progenitors over 1 ≤ z ≤ 5, using eight state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamics simulation codes in the AGORA project. In three of the participating codes, a distinct, rotation-dominated inner core emerges with a formation timescale of ≲300 Myr, largely driven by a major merger event, while two other codes exhibit similar signs of wet compaction—gaseous shrinkage into a compact starburst phase—at earlier epochs. The remaining three codes show only weak evidence of wet compaction. Consequently, we divide the simulated galaxies into two groups: those with strong compaction signatures and those with weaker ones. Galaxies in these two groups differ in size, stellar age gradients, and disk-to-total mass ratios. Specifically, codes with strong wet compaction build their outer disks in an inside-out fashion, leading to negative age gradients, whereas codes with weaker compaction feature flat or positive age gradients caused primarily by outward stellar migration. Although the stellar half-mass radii of these two groups diverge at z ∼ 3, the inclusion of dust extinction brings their sizes and shapes in mock observations closer to each other and to observed galaxies. We attribute the observed morphological differences primarily to variations in the stellar feedback implementations—such as delayed cooling timescales, and feedback strengths—that regulate both the onset and duration of compaction. Overall, our results suggest that disk assembly at high redshifts is highly sensitive to the details of the stellar feedback prescriptions in simulations.
We examine the redshift evolution of the relationship between the neutral atomic hydrogen (H i ) content and star formation properties of blue galaxies, along with their location in the cosmic web. Using the COSMOS H i Large Extragalactic Survey (CHILES) and the IllustrisTNG (TNG100) cosmological simulation, and the DisPerSE algorithm, we identify the filamentary structure in both observations and simulations, measure the distance of galaxies to the nearest filament spine D fil , and calculate the mean H i gas fraction and the relative specific star formation rate (sSFR) of blue galaxies in three different cosmic web environments—0 < D fil /Mpc < 2 (filament cores), 2 < D fil /Mpc < 4 (filament outskirts), and 4 < D fil /Mpc < 20 (voids). We find that, although there are some similarities between CHILES and TNG, there exist significant discrepancies in the dependence of H i and star formation on the cosmic web and on redshift. TNG overpredicts the observed H i fraction and relative sSFR at z = 0–0.5, with the tension being strongest in the voids. CHILES observes a decline in the H i fraction from filament cores to voids, exactly the opposite of the trend predicted by TNG. CHILES observes an increase in H i fraction at z = 0.5 → 0 in the voids, while TNG predicts an increase in this time in all environments. Further dividing the sample into stellar mass bins, we find that the H i in log ( M * / M ⊙ ) > 10 galaxies is better reproduced by TNG than H i in log ( M * / M ⊙ ) = 9 − 10 galaxies.
Context. The giant star-forming clumps in gas-rich high-redshift disks are commonly assumed to form due to gravitational instabilities, in which protoclumps have a Toomre-Q parameter less than unity. However, some cosmological simulations have shown that clumps can form in regions where Q is significantly greater than unity. In these simulations, there is an energy excess of compressive modes of turbulence that lead to gravitational collapse of regions that were not supposed to collapse under their own self-gravity, according to linear Toomre instability. In contrast, sites of clump formation in isolated simulations do not show this excess, suggesting that the origin of the compressive turbulence may be external. Aims. We explore two external mechanisms that can induce the compressive modes of disk turbulence in protoclumps, namely, compressive tides exerted by the cosmological environment and the direct driving by inflowing streams. Methods. We correlated the local strength of compressive tides and the amount of fresh stream material with protoclump regions in zoom-in cosmological simulations. We derived the local strength of compressive tides from the eigenvalues of the tidal tensor, and the local strength of incoming streams was derived from the fractional presence of the stream compared to the average. Results. We find that the tidal field in protoclumps tends to be over-compressive, while random patches in the disk show substantial diverging tides. In particular, in 25% of the protoclumps, the tidal field is fully compressive, while no random patch resides in regions of fully compressive tides. In addition, the protoclumps tend to reside in regions where the fraction of the incoming stream mass is two to ten times larger than the average at the same galactocentric radius. Conclusions. Both compressive tides and inflowing streams are correlated with the protoclumps and can thus serve as the drivers of the excessive compressive turbulence that can initiate clump formation before self-gravity takes over. This nature of turbulence constitutes a new non-linear mode of violent disk instabilities in high-z galaxies.
The cumulative number density matching approach equates number densities between adjacent redshifts to derive empirical galaxy evolution tracks from the observed galaxy stellar mass function. However, it is well known that this approach overlooks scatter in mass assembly histories and merger effects, with previous studies relying on model-based corrections, either from hydrodynamical cosmological simulations or adjustments to the evolution of cumulative number density with redshift. Here, we revisit this approach, showing that dark matter halo assembly histories imply evolving number densities that are far from constant. These exhibit an average slope of d log n(vir)/dz similar to 0.2 dex for progenitors at z=0, leading to evolutionary tracks where galaxies are similar to 2-3 times smaller in mass at z similar to 2 and an order of magnitude smaller by z similar to 7 compared to the number density matching approach. We show that evolving halo number densities provide realistic evolutionary tracks without relying on model-based corrections. Accounting for random errors in stellar mass measurements is also crucial for robust track derivation. We also discuss a generalization that incorporates a galaxy's star formation activity. When additionally considering the scatter around the M*-M-vir relation (similar to 0.15 dex), our evolving halo cumulative number density approach shows that some observed stellar masses, M-obs,*, can exceed the universal baryon fraction fbar similar to 0.16. For instance, at z=5, around 2 per cent of progenitor galaxies of haloes with Mvir similar to 3x10(12)M(circle dot) have M-obs,*>f(bar) M-vir, suggesting a potential 'early galaxy formation problem'. However, when deconvolving mass from random errors this tension is reduced with significant confidence at the similar to 5-6 sigma level.
We measure the clustering of low-redshift SDSS galaxies as a function of stellar mass (10.0 < log (M*/M⊙) < 11.5) and specific star formation rate (sSFR) and compare the results to models of the galaxy–halo connection. We find that the auto-correlation functions of central galaxies exhibit little dependence on sSFR, with the well-known stronger clustering of quiescent galaxies mainly attributable to satellites. Because halo assembly history is known to affect distinct halo clustering, this result implies that there is little net correlation between halo assembly history and central galaxy sSFR. However, cross-correlations with satellites are stronger for quiescent centrals than star-forming centrals, consistent with quiescent centrals having more satellites in their haloes at fixed M*, as found in SDSS group catalogues. We model the galaxy–halo connection in an N-body simulation by assigning sSFRs to central galaxies in three different ways. Two of the models depend on halo assembly history (being based on halo accretion rate or concentration), while the third is independent of halo assembly history (being based on peak halo circular velocity, Vpeak, a proxy for halo mass). All three models replicate the observed auto-correlations of central galaxies, while only the Vpeak model reproduces the observed cross-correlations with satellites. This further suggests that the effects of halo assembly history may not be easily seen in auto-correlations of centrals and implies that a more complete understanding of central galaxy clustering may require more than auto-correlations of centrals alone. Additionally, the good agreement with the Vpeak model supports the idea that quiescent galaxies reside in more massive haloes than star-forming galaxies at fixed M*.
We analyze the circumgalactic medium (CGM) for eight commonly-used cosmological codes in the AGORA collaboration. The codes are calibrated to use identical initial conditions, cosmology, heating and cooling, and star formation thresholds, but each evolves with its own unique code architecture and stellar feedback implementation. Here, we analyze the results of these simulations in terms of the structure, composition, and phase dynamics of the CGM. We show properties such as metal distribution, ionization levels, and kinematics are effective tracers of the effects of the different code feedback and implementation methods, and as such they can be highly divergent between simulations. This is merely a fiducial set of models, against which we will in the future compare multiple feedback recipes for each code. Nevertheless, we find that the large parameter space these simulations establish can help disentangle the different variables that affect observable quantities in the CGM, e.g., showing that abundances for ions with higher ionization energy are more strongly determined by the simulation's metallicity, while abundances for ions with lower ionization energy are more strongly determined by the gas density and temperature.
The 3D geometries of high-redshift galaxies remain poorly understood. We build a differentiable Bayesian model and use Hamiltonian Monte Carlo to efficiently and robustly infer the 3D shapes of star-forming galaxies in James Webb Space Telescope Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science observations with log M * / M ⊙ = 9.0 – 10.5 at z = 0.5–8.0. We reproduce previous results from the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey in a fraction of the computing time and constrain the mean ellipticity, triaxiality, size, and covariances with samples as small as ∼50 galaxies. We find high 3D ellipticities for all mass–redshift bins, suggesting oblate (disky) or prolate (elongated) geometries. We break that degeneracy by constraining the mean triaxiality to be ∼1 for log M * / M ⊙ = 9.0 – 9.5 dwarfs at z > 1 (favoring the prolate scenario), with significantly lower triaxialities for higher masses and lower redshifts indicating the emergence of disks. The prolate population traces out a “banana” in the projected b / a – log a diagram with an excess of low- b / a , large- log a galaxies. The dwarf prolate fraction rises from ∼25% at z = 0.5–1.0 to ∼50%–80% at z = 3–8. Our results imply a second kind of disk settling from oval (triaxial) to more circular (axisymmetric) shapes with time. We simultaneously constrain the 3D size–mass relation and its dependence on 3D geometry. High-probability prolate and oblate candidates show remarkably similar Sérsic indices ( n ∼ 1), nonparametric morphological properties, and specific star formation rates. Both tend to be visually classified as disks or irregular, but edge-on oblate candidates show more dust attenuation. We discuss selection effects, follow-up prospects, and theoretical implications.
ABSTRACT We present γ-ray optical-depth calculations from a recently published extragalactic background light (EBL) model built from multiwavelength galaxy data from the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (HST/CANDELS). CANDELS gathers one of the deepest and most complete observations of stellar and dust emissions in galaxies. This model resulted in a robust derivation of the evolving EBL spectral energy distribution up to z ∼ 6, including the far-infrared peak. Therefore, the optical depths derived from this model will be useful for determining the attenuation of γ-ray photons coming from high-redshift sources, such as those detected by the Large Area Telescope onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and for multi-TeV photons that will be detected from nearby sources by the future Cherenkov Telescope Array. From these newly calculated optical depths, we derive the cosmic γ-ray horizon and also measure the expansion rate and matter content of the Universe including an assessment of the impact of the EBL uncertainties. We find H0 = 62.4 $^{+4.1}_{-3.9}$ km s−1 Mpc−1 when fixing Ωm = 0.32, and H0 = 65.1 $^{+6.0}_{-4.9}$ km s−1 Mpc−1 and Ωm = 0.19 ± 0.08, when exploring these two parameters simultaneously.
In this fourth paper from the AGORA Collaboration, we study the evolution down to redshift z = 2 and below of a set of cosmological zoom-in simulations of a Milky Way mass galaxy by eight of the leading hydrodynamic simulation codes. We also compare this CosmoRun suite of simulations with dark matter-only simulations by the same eight codes. We analyze general properties of the halo and galaxy at z = 4 and 3, and before the last major merger, focusing on the formation of well-defined rotationally supported disks, the mass–metallicity relation, the specific star formation rate, the gas metallicity gradients, and the nonaxisymmetric structures in the stellar disks. Codes generally converge well to the stellar-to-halo mass ratios predicted by semianalytic models at z ∼ 2. We see that almost all the hydro codes develop rotationally supported structures at low redshifts. Most agree within 0.5 dex with the observed mass–metallicity relation at high and intermediate redshifts, and reproduce the gas metallicity gradients obtained from analytical models and low-redshift observations. We confirm that the intercode differences in the halo assembly history reported in the first paper of the collaboration also exist in CosmoRun , making the code-to-code comparison more difficult. We show that such differences are mainly due to variations in code-dependent parameters that control the time stepping strategy of the gravity solver. We find that variations in the early stellar feedback can also result in differences in the timing of the low-redshift mergers. All the simulation data down to z = 2 and the auxiliary data will be made publicly available.
The AGORA Cosmorun (arXiv:2106.09738) is a set of hydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations carried out within the AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project (arXiv:1308.2669,arXiv:1610.03066). These simulations show the formation and evolution of a Milky Way-sized galaxy using eight of the most widely used numerical codes in the community (Art-I, Enzo, Ramses, Changa, Gadget-3, Gear, Gizmo, and Arepo). In this short report, we describe the public release of the raw output data from all of these simulations at z = 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (plus at z=1, 0 when available), and several metadata files containing the halo centers, virial quantities, and merger trees. The data from even thinner timesteps will be released as soon as the upcoming collaboration papers (VII-IX) are submitted and accepted.
We present a novel approach for identifying cosmic web filaments within the DisPerSE structure identification framework, using cosmic density field estimates from the Monte Carlo Physarum Machine (MCPM), inspired by the slime mold organism. We apply our method to the IllustrisTNG (TNG100) cosmological simulations and investigate the impact of filaments on galaxies. The MCPM density field is superior to the Delaunay tessellation field estimator in tracing the true underlying matter distribution and allows filaments to be identified with higher fidelity, finding more low-prominence/diffuse filaments. Using our new filament catalogs, we find that greater than or similar to 90% of galaxies are located within similar to 1.5 Mpc of a filamentary spine, with little change in the median star formation activity with distance to the nearest filament. Instead, we uncover a differential effect of the local filament line density, Sigma fil (MCPM)-the total MCPM overdensity per unit length along a filament segment-on galaxy formation: most galaxies are quenched and gas-poor near high-line density filaments at z <= 1. At earlier times, the filamentary environment appears to have no effect on galactic gas supply and quenching. At z = 0, quenching in log(M*/M circle dot)greater than or similar to 10.5 galaxies is mainly driven by mass, while lower-mass galaxies are significantly affected by the filament line density. Satellites are far more susceptible to filaments than centrals. The local environments of massive halos are not sufficient to account for the effect of filament line density on gas removal and quenching. Our new approach holds great promise for observationally identifying filaments from galaxy surveys such as SDSS and DESI.
We analyze and compare the satellite halo populations at $z\sim2$ in the high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations of a $10^{12}\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$ target halo ($z=0$ mass) carried out on eight widely-used astrophysical simulation codes ({\sc Art-I}, {\sc Enzo}, {\sc Ramses}, {\sc Changa}, {\sc Gadget-3}, {\sc Gear}, {\sc Arepo-t}, and {\sc Gizmo}) for the {\it AGORA} High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. We use slightly different redshift epochs near $z=2$ for each code (hereafter ``$z\sim2$') at which the eight simulations are in the same stage in the target halo's merger history. After identifying the matched pairs of halos between the {\it CosmoRun} simulations and the DMO simulations, we discover that each {\it CosmoRun} halo tends to be less massive than its DMO counterpart. When we consider only the halos containing stellar particles at $z\sim2$, the number of satellite {\it galaxies} is significantly fewer than that of dark matter halos in all participating {\it AGORA} simulations, and is comparable to the number of present-day satellites near the Milky Way or M31. The so-called ``missing satellite problem' is fully resolved across all participating codes simply by implementing the common baryonic physics adopted in {\it AGORA} and the stellar feedback prescription commonly used in each code, with sufficient numerical resolution ($\lesssim100$ proper pc at $z=2$). We also compare other properties such as the stellar mass$-$halo mass relation and the mass$-$metallicity relation. Our work highlights the value of comparison studies such as {\it AGORA}, where outstanding problems in galaxy formation theory are studied simultaneously on multiple numerical platforms.