Toward Precise Galaxy Evolution: A Comparison between Spectral Indices of z ∼1 Galaxies in the IllustrisTNG Simulation and the LEGA-C Survey

Abstract

We present the first comparison of observed stellar continuum spectra of high-redshift galaxies and mock galaxy spectra generated from hydrodynamical simulations. The mock spectra are produced from the IllustrisTNG TNG100 simulation combined with stellar population models and take into account dust attenuation and realistic observational effects (aperture effects and noise). We compare the simulated D(n)4000 and EW(H delta) of galaxies with 10.5 <= log(M*/M circle dot)<= 11.5 z <= 1.0 to the observed distributions from the LEGA-C survey. TNG100 globally reproduces the observed distributions of spectral indices, implying that the age distribution of galaxies in TNG100 is generally realistic. Yet there are small but significant differences. For old galaxies, TNG100 shows small D(n)4000 when compared to LEGA-C, while LEGA-C galaxies have larger EW(H delta) at fixed D(n)4000 . There are several possible explanations: (1) LEGA-C galaxies have overall older ages combined with small contributions (a few percent in mass) from younger (<1 Gyr) stars, while TNG100 galaxies may not have such young subpopulations; (2) the spectral mismatch could be due to systematic uncertainties in the stellar population models used to convert stellar ages and metallicities to observables. In conclusion, the latest cosmological galaxy-formation simulations broadly reproduce the global age distribution of galaxies at z similar to 1 and, at the same time, the high quality of the latest observed and simulated data sets help constrain stellar population synthesis models as well as the physical models underlying the simulations.