The Dark Side of Galaxy Color
  We present age distribution matching, a theoretical formalism for predicting
how galaxies of luminosity L and color C occupy dark matter halos. Our model
supposes that there are just two fundamental properties of a halo that
determine the color and brightness of the galaxy it hosts: the maximum circular
velocity Vmax, and the redshift z_starve that correlates with the epoch at
which the star formation in the galaxy ceases. The halo property z_starve is
intended to encompass physical characteristics of halo mass assembly that may
deprive the galaxy of its cold gas supply and, ultimately, quench its star
formation. The new, defining feature of the model is that, at fixed luminosity,
galaxy color is in monotonic correspondence with z_starve, with the larger
values of z_starve being assigned redder colors. We populate an N- body
simulation with a mock galaxy catalog based on age distribution matching, and
show that the resulting mock galaxy distribution accurately describes a variety
of galaxy statistics. Our model suggests that halo and galaxy assembly are
indeed correlated. We make publicly available our low-redshift, SDSS M_r <-19
mock galaxy catalog, and main progenitor histories of all z=0 halos, at
http://logrus.uchicago.edu/~aphearin
