This paper describes a new publicly available codebase for modeling galaxy formation in a cosmological context, the "Semi-Analytic Galaxy Evolution" model, or SAGE for short.5 SAGE is a significant update to the 2006 model of Croton et al. and has been rebuilt to be modular and customizable. The model will run on any N-body simulation whose trees are organized in a supported format and contain a minimum set of basic halo properties. In this work, we present the baryonic prescriptions implemented in SAGE to describe the formation and evolution of galaxies, and their calibration for three N-body simulations: Millennium, Bolshoi, and GiggleZ. Updated physics include the following: gas accretion, ejection due to feedback, and reincorporation via the galactic fountain; a new gas cooling-radio mode active galactic nucleus (AGN) heating cycle; AGN feedback in the quasar mode; a new treatment of gas in satellite galaxies; and galaxy mergers, disruption, and the build-up of intra-cluster stars. Throughout, we show the results of a common default parameterization on each simulation, with a focus on the local galaxy population.

We have undertaken an ambitious program to visually classify all galaxies in the five CANDELS fields down to H < 24.5 involving the dedicated efforts of over 65 individual classifiers. Once completed, we expect to have detailed morphological classifications for over 50,000 galaxies spanning 0 < z < 4 over all the fields, with classifications from 3 to 5 independent classifiers for each galaxy. Here, we present our detailed visual classification scheme, which was designed to cover a wide range of CANDELS science goals. This scheme includes the basic Hubble sequence types, but also includes a detailed look at mergers and interactions, the clumpiness of galaxies, k-corrections, and a variety of other structural properties. In this paper, we focus on the first field to be completed-GOODS-S, which has been classified at various depths. The wide area coverage spanning the full field (wide+deep+ERS) includes 7634 galaxies that have been classified by at least three different people. In the deep area of the field, 2534 galaxies have been classified by at least five different people at three different depths. With this paper, we release to the public all of the visual classifications in GOODS-S along with the Perl/ Tk GUI that we developed to classify galaxies. We present our initial results here, including an analysis of our internal consistency and comparisons among multiple classifiers as well as a comparison to the Sérsic index. We find that the level of agreement among classifiers is quite good (>70% across the full magnitude range) and depends on both the galaxy magnitude and the galaxy type, with disks showing the highest level of agreement (>50%) and irregulars the lowest (<10%). A comparison of our classifications with the Sérsic index and rest-frame colors shows a clear separation between disk and spheroid populations. Finally, we explore morphological k-corrections between the V-band and H-band observations and find that a small fraction (84 galaxies in total) are classified as being very different between these two bands. These galaxies typically have very clumpy and extended morphology or are very faint in the V-band.

The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) will revolutionize our knowledge of gas-rich galaxies in the Universe. Here we present predictions for two proposed extragalactic ASKAP neutral hydrogen (H I) emission-line surveys, based on semi-analytic models applied to cosmological N-body simulations. The ASKAP H I All-Sky Survey, known as Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind surveY (WALLABY), is a shallow 3π survey (z = 0-0.26) which will probe the mass and dynamics of over 6 × 10 5 galaxies. A much deeper small-area H I survey, called Deep Investigation of Neutral Gas Origins (DINGO), aims to trace the evolution of H I from z = 0 to 0.43, a cosmological volume of 4 × 10 7 Mpc 3 , detecting potentially 10 5 galaxies. The high-sensitivity 30 antenna ASKAP core (diameter ∼2 km) will provide an angular resolution of 30 arcsec (at z = 0). Our simulations show that the majority of galaxies detected in WALLABY (87.5 per cent) will be resolved. About 5000 galaxies will be well resolved, i.e. more than five beams (2.5 arcmin) across the major axis, enabling kinematic studies of their gaseous discs. This number would rise to 1.6 × 10 5 galaxies if all 36 ASKAP antennas could be used; the additional six antennas provide baselines up to 6 km, resulting in an angular resolution of 10 arcsec. For DINGO this increased resolution is highly desirable to minimize source confusion, reducing confusion rates from a maximum of 10 per cent of sources at the survey edge to 3 per cent. We estimate that the sources detected by WALLABY and DINGO will span four orders of magnitude in total halo mass (from 10 11 to 10 15 M ) and nearly seven orders of magnitude in stellar mass (from 10 5 to 10 12 M ), allowing us to investigate the process of galaxy formation across the last four billion years.

We investigate the evolution of Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) from redshift z ∼ 1.6 to z = 0. We upgrade the hierarchical semi-analytic model of Croton et al. (2006) with a new spectro-photometric model that produces realistic galaxy spectra, making use of the Maraston (2005) stellar populations and a new recipe for the dust extinction. We compare the model predictions of the K-band luminosity evolution and the J-K, V-I and I-K colour evolution with a series of datasets, including Collins et al. (Nature, 2009) who argued that semi-analytic models based on the Millennium simulation cannot reproduce the red colours and high luminosity of BCGs at z > 1. We show instead that the model is well in range of the observed luminosity and correctly reproduces the colour evolution of BCGs in the whole redshift range up to z ∼ 1.6. We argue that the success of the semianalytic model is in large part due to the implementation of a more sophisticated spectro-photometric model. An analysis of the model BCGs shows an increase in mass by a factor 2 − 3 since z ∼ 1, and star formation activity down to low redshifts. While the consensus regarding BCGs is that they are passively evolving, we argue that this conclusion is affected by the degeneracy between star formation history and stellar population models used in SED-fitting, and by the inefficacy of toy-models of passive evolution to capture the complexity of real galaxies, expecially those with rich merger histories like BCGs. Following this argument, we also show that in the semi-analytic model the BCGs show a realistic mix of stellar populations, and that these stellar populations are mostly old. In addition, the age-redshift relation of the model BCGs follows that of the universe, meaning that given their merger history and star formation history, the ageing of BCGs is always dominated by the ageing of their stellar populations. In a ΛCDM universe, we define such evolution as 'passive in the hierarchical sense'.

We introduce the Theoretical Astrophysical Observatory (TAO), an online virtual laboratory that houses mock observations of galaxy survey data. Such mocks have become an integral part of the modern analysis pipeline. However, building them requires expert knowledge of galaxy modeling and simulation techniques, significant investment in software development, and access to high performance computing. These requirements make it difficult for a small research team or individual to quickly build a mock catalog suited to their needs. To address this TAO offers access to multiple cosmological simulations and semi-analytic galaxy formation models from an intuitive and clean web interface. Results can be funnelled through science modules and sent to a dedicated supercomputer for further processing and manipulation. These modules include the ability to (1) construct custom observer light cones from the simulation data cubes; (2) generate the stellar emission from star formation histories, apply dust extinction, and compute absolute and/or apparent magnitudes; and (3) produce mock images of the sky. All of TAO's features can be accessed without any programming requirements. The modular nature of TAO opens it up for further expansion in the future.