Redshift and luminosity evolution of the intrinsic alignments of galaxies in Horizon-AGN

Abstract

Intrinsic galaxy shape and angular momentum alignments can arise in cosmological large-scale structure due to tidal interactions or galaxy formation processes. Cosmological hydrodynamical simulations have recently come of age as a tool to study these alignments and their contamination to weak gravitational lensing. We probe the redshift and luminosity evolution of intrinsic alignments in Horizon-AGN between z=0 and z=3 for galaxies with an r-band absolute magnitude of 1 Mpc. Alignments of discs are null in projection and consistent with current low redshift observations. The combination of the two populations yields an overall amplitude a factor of ~4 lower than observed alignments of luminous red galaxies with a steeper luminosity dependence. The restriction on accurate galaxy shapes implies that the galaxy population in the simulation is complete only to an r-band absolute magnitude of