A particular population of galaxies have drawn much interest recently, which are as faint as typical dwarf galaxies but have the sizes as large as L * galaxies, the so called ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). The lack of tidal features of UDGs in dense environments suggests that their host halos are perhaps as massive as that of the Milky Way. On the other hand, galaxy formation efficiency should be much higher in the halos of such masses. Here we use the model galaxy catalog generated by populating two large simulations: the Millennium-II cosmological simulation and Phoenix simulations of 9 big clusters with the semi-analytic galaxy formation model. This model reproduces remarkably well the observed properties of UDGs in the nearby clusters, including the abundance, profile, color, and morphology, etc. We search for UDG candidates using the public data and find 2 UDG candidates in our Local Group and 23 in our Local Volume, in excellent agreement with the model predictions. We demonstrate that UDGs are genuine dwarf galaxies, formed in the halos of ∼ 10 10 M . It is the combination of the late formation time and high-spins of the host halos that results in the spatially extended feature of this particular population. The lack of tidal disruption features of UDGs in clusters can also be explained by their late infall-time.

We investigate the formation of ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) using the Auriga highresolution cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of Milky Way-sized galaxies. We identify a sample of 92 UDGs in the simulations that match a wide range of observables such as sizes, central surface brightness, Sérsic indices, colors, spatial distribution and abundance. Auriga UDGs have dynamical masses similar to normal dwarfs. In the field, the key to their origin is a strong correlation present in low-mass dark matter haloes between galaxy size and halo spin parameter. Field UDGs form in dark matter haloes with larger spins compared to normal dwarfs in the field, in agreement with previous semi-analytical models. Satellite UDGs, on the other hand, have two different origins: ∼ 55% of them formed as field UDGs before they were accreted; the remaining ∼ 45% were normal field dwarfs that subsequently turned into UDGs as a result of tidal interactions.

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