Brant E. Robertson

Computational Eulerian Hydrodynamics and Galilean Invariance (2009)

Robertson, Brant E., Kravtsov, Andrey V., Gnedin, Nickolay Y., Abel, Tom, Rudd, Douglas H.

Eulerian hydrodynamical simulations are a powerful and popular tool for modeling fluids in astrophysical systems. In this work, we critically examine recent claims that these methods violate Galilean...

Color Distributions, Number and Mass Densities of Massive Galaxies at 1.5 < z < 3: Comparing Observations with Merger Simulations (2009)

Wuyts, Stijn, Franx, Marijn, Cox, Thomas J., Schreiber, Natascha M. Forster, Hayward, Christopher C., Hernquist, Lars, ...

We present a comparison between the observed color distribution, number and mass density of massive galaxies at 1.5 < z < 3 and a model by Hopkins et al. that relates the quasar and galaxy population...

The Role of Dwarf Galaxies in Building Large Stellar Halos (2009)

Kirby, Evan N., Guhathakurta, Puragra, Bullock, James S., Frebel, Anna, Geha, Marla, Gilbert, Karoline M., ...

The hierarchical theory of galaxy formation rests on the idea that smaller galactic structures merge to form the galaxies that we see today. The past decade has provided remarkable observational...

Recovering Stellar Population Properties and Redshifts from Broad-Band Photometry of Simulated Galaxies: Lessons for SED Modeling (2009)

Wuyts, Stijn, Franx, Marijn, Cox, Thomas J., Hernquist, Lars, Hopkins, Philip F., Robertson, Brant E., ...

We present a detailed analysis of our ability to determine stellar masses, ages, reddening and extinction values, and star formation rates of high-redshift galaxies by modeling broad-band SEDs with...

A Semi-Analytic Model for the Co-evolution of Galaxies, Black Holes, and Active Galactic Nuclei (2008)

Somerville, Rachel S., Hopkins, Philip F., Cox, Thomas J., Robertson, Brant E., Hernquist, Lars

We present a new semi-analytic model that self-consistently traces the growth of supermassive black holes (BH) and their host galaxies within the context of the LCDM cosmological framework. In our...

High-Redshift Galaxy Kinematics: Constraints on Models of Disk Formation (2008)

Robertson, Brant E., Bullock, James S.

Integral field spectroscopy of galaxies at redshift z~2 has revealed a population of early-forming, rotationally-supported disks. These high-redshift systems provide a potentially important clue to...

Simulating High-Redshift Disk Galaxies: Applications to Long Duration Gamma-Ray Burst Hosts (2008)

Robertson, Brant E.

The efficiency of star formation governs many observable properties of the cosmological galaxy population, yet many current models of galaxy formation largely ignore the important physics of star...

Tracing Galaxy Formation with Stellar Halos II: Relating Substructure in Phase- and Abundance-Space to Accretion Histories (2008)

Johnston, Kathryn V., Bullock, James S., Sharma, Sanjib, Font, Andreea, Robertson, Brant E., Leitner, Samuel N.

This paper explores the mapping between the observable properties of a stellar halo in phase- and abundance-space and the parent galaxy's accretion history in terms of the characteristic epoch of...

A semi-analytic model for the co-evolution of galaxies, black holes and active galactic nuclei (2008)

Somerville, Rachel S., Hopkins, Philip F., Cox, Thomas J., Robertson, Brant E., Hernquist, Lars

We present a new semi-analytic model that self-consistently traces the growth of supermassive black holes (BH) and their host galaxies within the context of the Lambda cold dark matter (LambdaCDM)...

The Stellar Content of Galaxy Halos: A Comparison between LambdaCDM Models and Observations of M31 (2007)

Font, Andreea S., Johnston, Kathryn V., Ferguson, Annette M. N., Bullock, James S., Robertson, Brant E., Tumlinson, Jason, ...

Recent observations have revealed that high surface-brightness, metal-rich debris is present over large regions of the Andromeda (M31) stellar halo. We use a set of numerical models to determine...

Phase-Space Distributions of Chemical Abundances in Milky Way-type Galaxy Halos (2005)

Font, Andreea S., Johnston, Kathryn V., Bullock, James S., Robertson, Brant E.

[Abridged] Motivated by upcoming data from astrometric and spectroscopic surveys of the Galaxy, we explore the chemical abundance properties and phase-space distributions in hierarchically-formed...

Constraints on the Structure of Dark Matter Halos from the Rotation Curves of Low Surface Brightness Galaxies (1999)

Robertson, Brant E., Dalcanton, Julianne J.

We re-examine the disk-halo decompositions of the rotation curves of low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies with V_max > 80 km/s, taking full account of the effects of beam smearing. We show that the...