We introduce Meraxes, a new, purpose-built semi-analytic galaxy formation model designed for studying galaxy growth during reionization. Meraxes is the first model of its type to include a temporally and spatially coupled treatment of reionization and is built upon a custom (100 Mpc) 3 N -body simulation with high temporal and mass resolution, allowing us to resolve the galaxy and star formation physics relevant to early galaxy formation. Our fiducial model with supernova feedback reproduces the observed optical depth to electron scattering and evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function between z=5 and 7, predicting that a broad range of halo masses contribute to reionization. Using a constant escape fraction and global recombination rate, our model is unable to simultaneously match the observed ionizing emissivity at z < ∼ 6. However, the use of an evolving escape fraction of 0.05-0.1 at z∼6, increasing towards higher redshift, is able to satisfy these three constraints. We also demonstrate that photoionization suppression of low mass galaxy formation during reionization has only a small effect on the ionization history of the inter-galactic medium. This lack of 'selfregulation' arises due to the already efficient quenching of star formation by supernova feedback. It is only in models with gas supply-limited star formation that reionization feedback is effective at regulating galaxy growth. We similarly find that reionization has only a small effect on the stellar mass function, with no observationally detectable imprint at M * >10 7.5 M . However, patchy reionization has significant effects on individual galaxy masses, with variations of factors of 2-3 at z=5 that correlate with environment.

In this paper we present calculations of the UV luminosity function from the Dark-ages Reionization And Galaxy-formation Observables from Numerical Simulations (DRAG-ONS) project, which combines N-body, semi-analytic and semi-numerical modelling designed to study galaxy formation during the Epoch of Reionization. Using galaxy formation physics including supernova feedback, the model naturally reproduces the UV LFs for high-redshift star-forming galaxies from z∼5 through to z∼10. We investigate the luminosity-star formation rate (SFR) relation, finding that variable SFR histories of galaxies result in a scatter around the median relation of 0.1-0.3 dex depending on UV luminosity. We find close agreement between the model and observationally derived SFR functions. We use our calculated luminosities to investigate the luminosity function below current detection limits, and the ionizing photon budget for reionization. We predict that the slope of the UV LF remains steep below current detection limits and becomes flat at M UV −14. We find that 48 (17) per cent of the total UV flux at z∼6 (10) has been detected above an observational limit of M UV ∼−17, and that galaxies fainter than M UV ∼−17 are the main source of ionizing photons for reionization. We investigate the luminosity-stellar mass relation, and find a correlation for galaxies with M UV <−14 that has the form M * ∝10 −0.47MUV , in good agreement with observations, but which flattens for fainter galaxies. We determine the luminosity-halo mass relation to be M vir ∝10 −0.35MUV , finding that galaxies with M UV =−20 reside in host dark matter haloes of 10 11.0±0.1 M at z∼6, and that this mass decreases towards high redshift.

Neutrino masses and mixings can be generated in many different ways, with some of these scenarios featuring new physics at energy scales relevant for Large Hadron Collider searches. A systematic approach to constructing a large class of models for Majorana neutrinos may be founded upon a list of gauge-invariant effective operators-formed from quarks, leptons and the Higgs doublet-that violate lepton-number conservation by two units. By opening up these operators in all possible ways consistent with some minimality assumptions, a complete catalog of a class of minimal radiative neutrino mass models may be produced. In this paper we present an analysis of Feynman diagram topologies relevant for the ultraviolet completions of these effective operators and collect these into a simple recipe that can be used to generate radiative neutrino mass models. Since high mass-dimension effective operators are suppressed by powers of the scale of new physics, many of the resulting models can be meaningfully tested at the Large Hadron Collider.

Motivated by recent measurements of the number density of faint AGN at high redshift, we investigate the contribution of quasars to reionization by tracking the growth of central supermassive black holes in an update of the Meraxes semi-analytic model. The model is calibrated against the observed stellar mass function at z ∼ 0.6 − 7, the black hole mass function at z 0.5, the global ionizing emissivity at z ∼ 2 − 5 and the Thomson scattering optical depth. The model reproduces a Magorrian relation in agreement with observations at z < 0.5 and predicts a decreasing black hole mass towards higher redshifts at fixed total stellar mass. With the implementation of an opening angle of 80 deg for quasar radiation, corresponding to an observable fraction of ∼23.4 per cent due to obscuration by dust, the model is able to reproduce the observed quasar luminosity function at z ∼ 0.6 − 6. The stellar light from galaxies hosting faint AGN contributes a significant or dominant fraction of the UV flux. At high redshift, the model is consistent with the bright end quasar luminosity function and suggests that the recent faint z ∼ 4 AGN sample compiled by Giallongo et al. (2015) includes a significant fraction of stellar light. Direct application of this luminosity function to the calculation of AGN ionizing emissivity consequently overestimates the number of ionizing photons produced by quasars by a factor of 3 at z ∼ 6. We conclude that quasars are unlikely to make a significant contribution to reionization.