Cosmic reionization by starlight from early galaxies affected their evolution, thereby impacting reionization, itself. Star formation suppression, for example, may explain the observed underabundance of Local Group dwarfs relative to N-body predictions for Cold Dark Matter. Reionization modelling requires simulating volumes large enough [∼ (100 Mpc) 3 ] to sample reionization "patchiness", while resolving millions of galaxy sources above ∼ 10 8 M , combining gravitational and gas dynamics with radiative transfer. Modelling the Local Group requires initial cosmological density fluctuations pre-selected to form the well-known structures of the local universe today. Cosmic Dawn ("CoDa") is the first such fully-coupled, radiation-hydrodynamics simulation of reionization of the local universe. Our new hybrid CPU-GPU code, RAMSES-CUDATON, performs hundreds of radiative transfer and ionization ratesolver timesteps on the GPUs for each hydro-gravity timestep on the CPUs. CoDa simulated (91Mpc) 3 with 4096 3 particles and cells, to redshift 4.23, on ORNL supercomputer Titan, utilizing 8192 cores and 8192 GPUs. Global reionization ended slightly later than observed. However, a simple temporal rescaling which brings the evolution of ionized fraction into agreement with observations also reconciles ionizing flux density, cosmic star formation history, CMB electron scattering optical depth and galaxy UV luminosity function with their observed values. Photoionization heating suppressed the star formation of haloes below ∼ 2 × 10 9 M , decreasing the abundance of faint galaxies around M AB1600 = [−10, −12]. For most of reionization, star formation was dominated by haloes between 10 10 − 10 11 M , so low-mass halo suppression was not reflected by a distinct feature in the global star formation history. Intergalactic filaments display sheathed structures, with hot envelopes surrounding cooler cores, but do not self-shield, unlike regions denser than 100 ρ .

We perform smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of an isolated galaxy with a new treatment for dust formation and destruction. To this aim, we treat dust and metal production self-consistently with star formation and supernova (SN) feedback. For dust, we consider a simplified model of grain size distribution by representing the entire range of grain sizes with large and small grains. We include dust production in stellar ejecta, dust destruction by SN shocks, grain growth by accretion and coagulation, and grain disruption by shattering. We find that the assumption of fixed dust-to-metal mass ratio becomes no longer valid when the galaxy is older than 0.2 Gyr, at which point the grain growth by accretion starts to contribute to the nonlinear rise of dust-to-gas ratio. As expected in our previous one-zone model, shattering triggers grain growth by accretion since it increases the total surface area of grains. Coagulation becomes significant when the galaxy age is greater than ∼ 1 Gyr: at this epoch the abundance of small grains becomes high enough to raise the coagulation rate of small grains. We further compare the radial profiles of dust-to-gas ratio (D) and dustto-metal ratio (D/Z) (i.e., depletion) at various ages with observational data. We find that our simulations broadly reproduce the radial gradients of dust-to-gas ratio and depletion. In the early epoch ( 0.3 Gyr), the radial gradient of D follows the metallicity gradient with D/Z determined by the dust condensation efficiency in stellar ejecta, while the D gradient is steeper than the Z gradient at the later epochs because of grain growth by accretion. The framework developed in this paper is applicable to any SPH-based galaxy evolution simulations including cosmological ones.

We present the results of a numerical study comparing photometric and physical properties of simulated z= 6–9 galaxies to the observations taken by the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. Using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations we find good agreement with observations in colour–colour space at all studied redshifts. We also find good agreement between observations and our Schechter luminosity function fit in the observable range, Muv≤−18, provided that a moderate dust extinction effect exists for massive galaxies. However beyond what currently can be observed, simulations predict a very large number of low‐mass galaxies and evolving steep faint‐end slopes from αL=−2.15 at z= 6 to αL=−2.64 at z= 9, with a dependence of |αL| ∝ (1 +z)0.59. During the same epoch, the normalization ϕ* increases and the characteristic magnitude becomes moderately brighter with decreasing redshift. We find similar trends for galaxy stellar mass function with evolving low‐mass end slope from αM=−2.26 at z= 6 to αM=−2.87 at z= 9, with a dependence of |αM| ∝ (1 +z)0.65. Together with our recent result on the high escape fraction of ionizing photons for low‐mass galaxies, our results suggest that the low‐mass galaxies are important contributor of ionizing photons for the reionization of the Universe at z≥ 6.

Using an isolated Milky Way-mass galaxy simulation, we compare results from 9 state-of-the-art gravitohydrodynamics codes widely used in the numerical community. We utilize the infrastructure we have built for the AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. This includes the common disk initial conditions, common physics models (e.g., radiative cooling and UV background by the standardized package GRACKLE) and common analysis toolkit yt, all of which are publicly available. Subgrid physics models such as Jeans pressure floor, star formation, supernova feedback energy, and metal production are carefully constrained across code platforms. With numerical accuracy that resolves the disk scale height, we find that the codes overall agree well with one another in many dimensions including: gas and stellar surface densities, rotation curves, velocity dispersions, density and temperature distribution functions, disk vertical heights, stellar clumps, star formation rates, and Kennicutt-Schmidt relations. Quantities such as velocity dispersions are very robust (agreement within a few tens of percent at all radii) while measures like newly-2 J. KIM ET AL. FOR THE AGORA COLLABORATION formed stellar clump mass functions show more significant variation (difference by up to a factor of ∼3). Systematic differences exist, for example, between mesh-based and particle-based codes in the low density region, and between more diffusive and less diffusive schemes in the high density tail of the density distribution. Yet intrinsic code differences are generally small compared to the variations in numerical implementations of the common subgrid physics such as supernova feedback. Our experiment reassures that, if adequately designed in accordance with our proposed common parameters, results of a modern high-resolution galaxy formation simulation are more sensitive to input physics than to intrinsic differences in numerical schemes.

Neuroligin-1 is a potent trigger for the de novo formation of synaptic connections, and it has recently been suggested that it is required for the maturation of functionally competent excitatory synapses. Despite evidence for the role of neuroligin-1 in specifying excitatory synapses, the underlying molecular mechanisms and physiological consequences that neuroligin-1 may have at mature synapses of normal adult animals remain unknown. By silencing endogenous neuroligin-1 acutely in the amygdala of live behaving animals, we have found that neuroligin-1 is required for the storage of associative fear memory. Subsequent cellular physiological studies showed that suppression of neuroligin-1 reduces NMDA receptor-mediated currents and prevents the expression of long-term potentiation without affecting basal synaptic connectivity at the thalamo-amygdala pathway. These results indicate that persistent expression of neuroligin-1 is required for the maintenance of NMDAR-mediated synaptic transmission, which enables normal development of synaptic plasticity and long-term memory in the amygdala of adult animals.synaptic plasticity ͉ neuroligin ͉ autism S everal studies have found that synaptically localized cell adhesion molecules not only trigger synapse formation but also play a major role in regulating both basal synaptic transmission and synaptic plasticity (1, 2). Among them, neurexins and neuroligins (NLs), which undergo a heterophilic interaction with each other, have emerged as important organizers of de novo synapse formation (3). Moreover, modifying the interaction of neuroligin-1 and PSD-95 alters the balance of neuronal excitation and inhibition required for normal brain function (4). The indispensable role of neuroligins for proper neuronal connectivity is further supported by the genetic linkage of neuroligin mutations with autism, a disease that is thought to be a disorder in social cognition that critically involves the amygdala (5, 6).Because neuroligins are present both during development and throughout adulthood (7,8), it is likely that neuroligins play roles other than that of an inducer of synaptogenesis in the adult brain. Indeed, a recent study of knockout (KO) mice deficient in neuroligin-1 demonstrated that neuroligin-1 regulates excitatory synaptic responses (9). Although neuroligin-1 has been suggested to be essential for maintaining normal N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-type glutamate receptor-mediated currents (9), the underlying mechanism and its physiological consequence remain to be identified. Furthermore, because the regulation of NMDA receptor (NMDAR) is critical for long-term synaptic modification (10), alterations of NMDAR-dependent currents regulated by neuroligin-1 are likely to have effects on synaptic plasticity and long-term memory in adult animals.To address the functional role of neuroligin-1 at existing mature synapses, we used virus-mediated RNA interference to deplete endogenous neuroligin-1 in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala (LA) of adult animals. We investigated the actions...

We use numerical simulations to explore whether direct collapse can lead to the formation of supermassive black hole (SMBH) seeds at high redshifts. Using the adaptive mesh refinement code ENZO, we follow the evolution of gas within slowly tumbling dark matter (DM) halos of M vir ∼ 2 × 10 8 M and R vir ∼ 1 kpc. For our idealized simulations, we adopt cosmologically motivated DM and baryon density profiles and angular momentum distributions. Our principal goal is to understand how the collapsing flow overcomes the centrifugal barrier and whether it is subject to fragmentation which can potentially lead to star formation, decreasing the seed SMBH mass. We find that the collapse proceeds from inside out and leads either to a central runaway or to off-center fragmentation. A disk-like configuration is formed inside the centrifugal barrier, growing via accretion. For models with a more cuspy DM distribution, the gas collapses more and experiences a bar-like perturbation and a central runaway on scales of 1-10 pc. We have followed this inflow down to ∼10 −4 pc (∼10 AU), where it is estimated to become optically thick. The flow remains isothermal and the specific angular momentum, j, is efficiently transferred by gravitational torques in a cascade of nested bars. This cascade is triggered by finite perturbations from the large-scale mass distribution and by gas self-gravity, and supports a self-similar, disk-like collapse where the axial ratios remain constant. The mass accretion rate shows a global minimum on scales of ∼1-10 pc at the time of the central runaway. In the collapsing phase, virial supersonic turbulence develops and fragmentation is damped. Models with progressively larger initial DM cores evolve similarly, but the timescales become longer. In models with more organized initial rotation-when the rotation of spherical shells is constrained to be coplanar-a torus forms on scales ∼20-50 pc outside the disk, and appears to be supported by turbulent motions driven by accretion from the outside. The overall evolution of the models depends on the competition between two timescales, corresponding to the onset of the central runaway and of off-center fragmentation. In models with less organized rotation-when the rotation of spherical shells is randomized (but the total angular momentum remains unchanged)-the torus is greatly weakened, the central accretion timescale is shortened, and off-center fragmentation is suppressed-triggering the central runaway even in previously "stable" models. The resulting seed SMBH masses is found in the range M • ∼ 2 × 10 4 M -2 × 10 6 M , substantially higher than the mass range of Population III remnants. We argue that the above upper limit on M • appears to be more realistic, and lies close to the cutoff mass of detected SMBHs. Corollaries of this model include a possible correlation between SMBH and DM halo masses, and similarity between the SMBH and halo mass functions, at time of formation.

Environmental cues affect place cells responses, but whether this information is integrated versus segregated in distinct hippocampal cell populations is unclear. Here, we show that, in mice running on a treadmill enriched with visual-tactile landmarks, place cells are more strongly controlled by landmark-associated sensory inputs in deeper regions of CA1 pyramidal layer (CA1d). Many cells in CA1d display several firing fields correlated with landmarks, mapping positions slightly before or within the landmarks. Supporting direct involvement of sensory inputs, their firing fields show instantaneous responses to landmark manipulations, persist through change of context, and encode landmark identity and saliency. In contrast, cells located superficially in the pyramidal layer have single firing fields, are context specific and respond with slow dynamics to landmark manipulations. These findings suggest parallel and anatomically segregated circuits within CA1 pyramidal layer, with variable ties to landmarks, allowing flexible representation of spatial and non-spatial information.

Prompted by various analyses of long (Type II) GRB rates and their relationship to the cosmic star-formation history, metallicity and luminosity function evolution, we systematically analyze these effects with a Monte Carlo code. We test various cosmic star-formation history models including analytical and empirical models as well as those derived from cosmological simulations. We also explore expressions for metallicity enhancement of the GRB rate with redshift, as presented in the literature, and discuss improvements to these analytic expressions from the point of view of galactic evolution. These are also compared to cosmological simulations on metal enrichment. Additionally we explore possible evolutionary effects of the GRB rate and luminosity function with redshift. The simulated results are tested with the observed Swift sample including the L, z, and peak flux (log N-log P) distributions. The observational data imply that an increase in the GRB rate is necessary to account for the observations at high redshift, although the form of this enhancement is unclear. A rate increase due to lower metallicity at higher redshift may not be the singular cause and is subject to a variety of uncertainties. Alternatively, evolution of the GRB luminosity function break with redshift shows promise as a possible alternative.Comment: MNRAS Accepted. Minor changes to text. 12 pages, 5 figures, 4 table