The nature of submillimetre and highly star-forming galaxies in the EAGLE simulation

We exploit EAGLE, a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, to reproduce the selection of the observed submillimetre (submm) galaxy population by selecting the model galaxies at z ≥ 1 with mock submm fluxes S_{850 μ m} ≥ 1 mJy. We find a reasonable agreement between the model galaxies within this sample and the properties of the observed submm population, such as their star formation rates (SFRs) at z 4) and are lower mass (M* ̃ 1010 M☉). These typically higher redshift galaxies show stronger evidence for having been triggered by major mergers, and critically, they are likely missed by most current submm surveys due to their higher dust temperatures and lower dust masses