Star-forming galaxies constitute the majority of galaxies with stellar masses \gtrsim 10 ^ { 10 } h ^ { -2 } M _ { \sun } at z \sim 2 .
It is thus critical to understand their origins , evolution , and connection to the underlying dark matter distribution .
To this end , we identify the dark matter halos ( including subhalos ) that are likely to contain star-forming galaxies at z \sim 2 ( z2SFGs ) within a large dissipationless cosmological simulation and then use halo merger histories to follow the evolution of z2SFG descendants to z \sim 1 and z \sim 0 .
The evolved halos at these epochs are then confronted with an array of observational data in order to uncover the likely descendants of z2SFGs .
Though the evolved halos have clustering strengths comparable to red galaxies at z \sim 1 and z \sim 0 , we find that the bulk of z2SFGs do not evolve into red galaxies , at either epoch .
This conclusion is based primarily on the fact that the space density of z2SFGs is much higher than that of lower redshift red galaxies , even when accounting for the merging of z2SFG descendants , which decreases the number density of z2SFG descendants by at most a factor of two by z \sim 0 .
Of the \sim 50 % of z2SFGs that survive to z \sim 0 , \sim 70 % reside at the center of z \sim 0 dark matter halos with M > 10 ^ { 12 } h ^ { -1 } M _ { \sun } .
Halo occupation modeling of z \sim 0 galaxies suggests that such halos are occupied by galaxies with M _ { r } \lesssim - 20.5 , implying that these z2SFGs evolve into “ typical ” \sim L ^ { \ast } galaxies today , including our own Galaxy .
The remaining \sim 30 % become satellite galaxies by z \sim 0 , and comparison to halo occupation modeling suggests that they are rather faint , with M _ { r } \lesssim - 19.5 .
These conclusions are at least a partial departure from previous work due primarily to the increased accuracy of observational data at z \lesssim 1 , and to higher resolution N -body simulations that explicitly follow the evolution of dark matter subhalos , whose observational counterparts are likely satellite galaxies .
These conclusions are qualitatively generic in the sense that any halo mass-selected sample of galaxies at one epoch will evolve into a more complex and heterogeneous sample of galaxies at a later epoch .
This heterogeneity is driven largely by the fact that some galaxies will continue to accrete matter and form stars throughout their evolution , while others will become satellites and thus have their growth suppressed relative to galaxies in the field .