Redshift evolution of the merger fraction of galaxies in cold dark matter cosmologies

We use semianalytical modeling of galaxy formation to study the redshift ev olution of the galaxy merger fractions and merger rates in Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda CDM) and quintessence (QCDM) cosmologies, their dependence on physical parameters such as the environment, the merger timescale, the w ay major mergers are defined, and the minimum mass of objects taken into ac count. We find that for a given final halo mass the redshift dependence of the merger fraction F-mg and the resulting merger rate can be fitted well b y a power law for redshifts z less than or similar to 1. The normalization F-mg(0) and the slope m depend on the final halo mass. For a given merger t imescale t(merg) and an assumed maximum mass ratio R-major for major merger s, F-mg(0) and m depend exponentially on each other. The slope m depends lo garithmically on the ratio of the final halo mass and the minimum halo mass taken into account. In addition, the local normalization F-mg(0) increases for larger R-major while m decreases. We compare the predicted merger frac tion with recent observations and find that the model cannot reproduce both the merger index and the normalization at the same time. In general the mo del underestimates F-mg(0) and m by a factor of 2.