The ever increasing size and complexity of data coming from simulations of cosmic structure formation demands equally sophisticated tools for their analysis. During the past decade, the art of object finding in these simulations has hence developed into an important discipline itself. A multitude of codes based upon a huge variety of methods and techniques have been spawned yet the question remained as to whether or not they will provide the same (physical) information about the structures of interest. Here we summarize and extent previous work of the "halo finder comparison project": we investigate in detail the (possible) origin of any deviations across finders. To this extent we decipher and discuss differences in halo finding methods, clearly separating them from the disparity in definitions of halo properties. We observe that different codes not only find different numbers of objects leading to a scatter of up to 20 per cent in the halo mass and V max function, but also that the particulars of those objects that are identified by all finders differ. The strength of the variation, however, depends on the property studied, e.g. the scatter in position, bulk velocity, mass, and the peak value of the rotation curve is practically below a few per cent, whereas derived quantities such as spin and shape show larger deviations. Our study indicates that the prime contribution to differences in halo properties across codes stems from the distinct particle collection methods and -to a minor extent -the particular aspects of how the procedure for removing unbound particles is implemented. We close with a discussion of the relevance and implications of the scatter across different codes for other fields such as semi-analytical galaxy formation models, gravitational lensing, and observables in general.

We present a study of a comparison of spin distributions of subhaloes found associated with a host halo. The subhaloes are found within two cosmological simulation families of Milky Way-like galaxies, namely the Aquarius and GHALO simulations. These two simulations use different gravity codes and cosmologies. We employ ten different substructure finders, which span a wide range of methodologies from simple overdensity in configuration space to full 6-d phase space analysis of particles. We subject the results to a common post-processing pipeline to analyse the results in a consistent manner, recovering the dimensionless spin parameter. We find that spin distribution is an excellent indicator of how well the removal of background particles (unbinding) has been carried out. We also find that the spin distribution decreases for substructure the nearer they are to the host halo's, and that the value of the spin parameter rises with enclosed mass towards the edge of the substructure. Finally subhaloes are less rotationally supported than field haloes, with the peak of the spin distribution having a lower spin parameter.

This work studies the relation between gas-phase oxygen abundance and stellar-togas fraction in nearby galaxies. We first derive the theoretical prediction, and argue that this relation is fundamental, in the sense that it must be verified regardless of the details of the gas accretion and star formation histories. Moreover, it should hold on 'local' scales, i.e. in regions of the order of 1 kpc. These predictions are then compared with a set of spectroscopic observations, including both integrated and resolved data. Although the results depend somewhat on the adopted metallicity calibration, observed galaxies are consistent with the predicted relation, imposing tight constraints on the mass-loading factor of (enriched) galactic winds. The proposed parametrization of the star fraction-metallicity relation is able to describe the observed dependence of the oxygen abundance on gas mass at fixed stellar mass. However, the 'local' mass-metallicity relation also depends on the relation between stellar and gas surface densities.

This work investigates the main mechanism(s) that regulate the specific star formation rate (SSFR) in nearby galaxies, cross-correlating two proxies of this quantity -the equivalent width of the Hα line and the (u − r) colour -with other physical properties (mass, metallicity, environment, morphology, and the presence of close companions) in a sample of ∼ 82500 galaxies extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The existence of a relatively tight 'ageing sequence' in the colour-equivalent width plane favours a scenario where the secular conversion of gas into stars (i.e. 'nature') is the main physical driver of the instantaneous SSFR and the gradual transition from a 'chemically primitive' (metal-poor and intensely star-forming) state to a 'chemically evolved' (metal-rich and passively evolving) system. Nevertheless, environmental factors (i.e. 'nurture') are also important. In the field, galaxies may be temporarily affected by discrete 'quenching' and 'rejuvenation' episodes, but such events show little statistical significance in a probabilistic sense, and we find no evidence that galaxy interactions are, on average, a dominant driver of star formation. Although visually classified mergers tend to display systematically higher EW(Hα) and bluer (u − r) colours for a given luminosity, most galaxies with high SSFR have uncertain morphologies, which could be due to either internal or external processes. Field galaxies of early and late morphological types are consistent with the gradual 'ageing' scenario, with no obvious signatures of a sudden decrease in their SSFR. In contrast, star formation is significantly reduced and sometimes completely quenched on a short time scale in dense environments, where many objects are found on a 'quenched sequence' in the colour-equivalent width plane.