The Tully-Fisher and mass-size relations from halo abundance matching
  The Tully-Fisher relation (TFR) expresses the connection between rotating
galaxies and the dark matter haloes they inhabit, and therefore contains a
wealth of information about galaxy formation. We construct a general framework
to investigate whether models based on halo abundance matching are able to
reproduce the observed stellar mass TFR and mass-size relation (MSR), and use
the data to constrain galaxy formation parameters. Our model tests a range of
plausible scenarios, differing in the response of haloes to disc formation, the
relative angular momentum of baryons and dark matter, the impact of selection
effects, and the abundance matching parameters. We show that agreement with the
observed TFR puts an upper limit on the scatter between galaxy and halo
properties, requires weak or reversed halo contraction, and favours selection
effects that preferentially eliminate fast-rotating galaxies. The MSR
constrains the ratio of the disc to halo specific angular momentum to be
approximately in the range 0.6-1.2. We identify and quantify two problems that
models of this nature face. (1) They predict too large an intrinsic scatter for
the MSR, and (2) they predict too strong an anticorrelation between the TFR and
MSR residuals. We argue that resolving these problems requires introducing a
correlation between stellar surface density and enclosed dark matter mass.
Finally, we explore the expected difference between the TFRs of central and
satellite galaxies, finding that in the favoured models this difference should
be detectable in a sample of ~700 galaxies.
