Cosmological simulations of the high-redshift radio universe

Using self-consistent cosmological simulations of disc galaxy formation, we analyse the 1.4-GHz radio flux from high-redshift progenitors of present-day normal spirals within the context of present-day and planned next-generation observational facilities. We demonstrate that, while current radio facilities such as the Very Large Array (VLA) are unlikely to trace these progenitors beyond redshifts z(greater than or equivalent to)0.2, future facilities such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) will readily probe their characteristics to redshifts z(less than or equivalent to)2, and are likely to provide detections beyond z≈ 3. We also demonstrate that the progenitors of present-day central dominant galaxies can emit in excess of 10 μJy of flux at redshifts z(greater than or equivalent to)1, and may be a non-negligible contributor to the micro-Jansky source counts derived from current deep VLA centimetre-wave surveys