{ "id": "1902.05496", "version": "v1", "published": "2019-02-14T16:59:38.000Z", "updated": "2019-02-14T16:59:38.000Z", "title": "A semi-analytical perspective on massive galaxies at $z\\sim0.55$", "authors": [ "D. Stoppacher", "F. Prada", "A. D. Montero-Dorta", "S. Rodríguez-Torres", "A. Knebe", "G. Favole", "W. Cui", "A. J. Benson", "C. Behrens", "A. A. Klypin" ], "comment": "15 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, submitted to MNRAS", "categories": [ "astro-ph.GA", "astro-ph.CO" ], "abstract": "The most massive and luminous galaxies in the Universe serve as powerful probes to study the formation of structure, the assembly of mass, and cosmology. However, their detailed formation and evolution is still barely understood. Here we extract a sample of massive mock galaxies from the semi-analytical model of galaxy formation (SAM) GALACTICUS from the MultiDark-Galaxies, by replicating the CMASS photometric selection from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). The comparison of the GALACTICUS CMASS-mock with BOSS-CMASS data allows us to explore different aspects of the massive galaxy population at $0.5