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A Research Note on the Implementation of Star Formation and Stellar Feedback in Semi-Analytic Models

We study the impact of star formation and stellar feedback prescriptions on galaxy properties predicted by means of "stripped-down" versions of independently developed semi-analytic models (SAMs). These include cooling, star formation, feedback from supernovae (SNe) and simplified prescriptions for galaxy merging, but no chemical evolution, disc instabilities or AGN feedback. We run these versions on identical samples of dark matter (DM) haloes extracted from high-resolution N-body simulations in order to perform both statistical analysis and object-by-object comparisons. We compare our results with previous work based on stripped-down versions of the same SAMs including only gas cooling, and show that all feedback models provide coherent modifications in the distribution of baryons between the various gas phases. In particular, we find that the predicted hot gas fractions are considerably increased by up to a factor of three, while the corresponding cold gas fractions are correspondingly decreased, and a significant amount of mass is ejected from the DM halo. Nonetheless, we also find relevant differences in the predicted properties of model galaxies among the three SAMs: these deviations are more relevant at mass scales comparable to that of our own Galaxy, and are reduced at larger masses, confirming the varying impact of stellar feedback at different mass scales. We also check the effect of enhanced star formation events (i.e. starbursts modes), defined in connection with galaxy mergers. We find that, in general, these episodes have a limited impact in the overall star formation histories of model galaxies, even in massive DM halos where merger-driven star formation has often been considered very important.