Painting dark matter halos with galaxies in mock samples for future surveys

In this thesis we present a completely empirical workflow that produces, from the outputs of a dark matter cosmological simulation, a galaxy mock catalog which is able to reproduce with accuracy a number of physical properties of galaxies such as stellar masses, star-formation rates, observed photometry, emission lines and sizes. The main goal of this thesis is to provide to the scientific community a galaxy mock catalog useful, as mentioned above, to make predictions for future surveys, to plan future observations, to understand and minimize uncertainties and to study systematics and selection effects.