[Previous] | [Session 17] | [Next]

[17.04] A Comparison of Simulated and Analytic Dark Matter Halo Major Merger Counts

J.D. Cohn (Harvard-Smithsonian CFA), J. S. Bagla (Mehta Research Institute and Harvard-Smithsonian CFA), M.J. White (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Major mergers, as compared to accretion, can significantly disrupt the state of the resulting system. This can either be a source of noise (e.g. a mass temperature relation for galaxy clusters) or a source of signal (for instance a trigger for star formation). We focus on major merger counts, that is, mergers which have occurred within a certain recent time interval, as a function of mass and era, for dark matter halos from about 10¹³ h^-1 M_\odot to 10¹⁵ h^-1 M_\odot. At these scales, N-body (gravity only) simulations can be expect to be reliable. We use TREEPM N-body simulations to calculate these counts, and compare with predictions we derived using (extended) Press-Schechter theory.

[Previous] | [Session 17] | [Next]