Models of high redshift luminosity functions and galactic outflows: The dependence on halo mass function

Abstract

The form of the halo mass function is a basic ingredient in any semi-analytical galaxy formation model. We study the existing forms of the mass functions in the literature and compare their predictions for semi-analytical galaxy formation models. Two methods are used in the literature to compute the net formation rate of halos, one by simply taking the derivative of the halo mass function and the other using the prescription due to Sasaki (1994). For the historically used Press-Schechter (PS) mass function, we compare various model predictions, using these two methods. However, as the Sasaki formalism cannot be easily generalized for other mass functions, we use the derivative while comparing model predictions of di erent mass functions. We show that the reionization history and UV luminosity function of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) predicted by the PS mass function di ers from those using any other existing mass function, like Sheth-Tormen (ST) mass func- tion. In particular the reionization e ciency of molecular cooled halos has to be substantially reduced when one uses the ST and other mass functions obtained from the simulation instead of the PS mass function. Using 2 - minimization, we nd that the observed UV luminosity functions of LBGs at 3:0 z 7:4 are better reproduced by models using the ST mass function compared to models that use the PS mass function. On the other hand, the volume lling factor of the metals expelled from the galaxies through super- novae driven out ows di ers very little between models with di erent mass functions. It depends on the way we treat merging out ows. We also show that the porosity weighted average quantities related to the out ow are not very sensitive to the di erences in the halo mass function