The TNG50-SKIRT Atlas: Post-processing methodology and first data release

¹ Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent, Krijgslaan 281 S9, 9000 Gent, Belgium
e-mail: maarten.baes@ugent.be
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, N283 ESC, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
³ Center for Astrophysical Sciences, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
⁴ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
⁵ Physics Department, College of Natural Sciences, Jimma University, PO Box 378, Jimma, Ethiopia
⁶ Instituto de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Michoacán 58089, Mexico
⁷ SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Landleven 12, 9747 AD Groningen, The Netherlands
⁸ Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, Postbus 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
⁹ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Salita Moiariello 16, 80131 Napoli, Italy

Received: 29 October 2023
Accepted: 22 December 2023

Abstract

Galaxy morphology is a powerful diagnostic to assess the realism of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. Determining the morphology of simulated galaxies requires the generation of synthetic images through 3D radiative transfer post-processing that properly accounts for different stellar populations and interstellar dust attenuation. We use the SKIRT code to generate the TNG50-SKIRT Atlas, a synthetic UV to near-infrared broadband image atlas for a complete stellar-mass selected sample of 1154 galaxies extracted from the TNG50 cosmological simulation at z = 0. The images have a high spatial resolution (100 pc) and a wide field of view (160 kpc). In addition to the dust-obscured images, we also release dust-free images and physical parameter property maps with matching characteristics. As a sanity check and preview application we discuss the UVJ diagram of the galaxy sample. We investigate the effect of dust attenuation on the UVJ diagram and find that it affects both the star-forming and the quiescent galaxy populations. The quiescent galaxy region is polluted by younger and star-forming highly inclined galaxies, while dust attenuation induces a separation in inclination of the star-forming galaxy population, with low-inclination galaxies remaining at the blue side of the diagram and high-inclination galaxies systematically moving towards the red side. This image atlas can be used for a variety of other applications, including galaxy morphology studies and the investigation of local scaling relations. We publicly release the images and parameter maps, and we invite the community to use them.