Effects of the UV background radiation on galaxy formation

Abstract

We investigate the effects of the UV background radiation on galaxy formation by using the semi-analytic model including the photoionization process. The semi-analytic model is based on Cole et al. (1994) and we use almost the same parameters of their `fiducial' model. We find that the UV background mainly affects the formation of dwarf galaxies. Because of the suppression of star formation, the number density of small objects corresponding to dwarf galaxies decreases compared to the case of no UV radiation when the UV background exists until the present epoch. When the UV background vanishes at a low redshift, the number density of small objects is hardly changed but the colour becomes bluer, compared to the case of no UV radiation, because stars are newly formed after the UV background vanishes. On the other hand, the UV radiation hardly affects massive galaxies. This is because the massive galaxies are formed by mergers of small galaxies.