  The number density and clustering properties of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs)
are consistent with them being the central galaxies of the most massive dark
halos present at z~3. This conclusion holds in all currently popular
hierarchical models for structure formation, and is almost independent of the
global cosmological parameters. We examine whether the sizes, luminosities,
kinematics and star-formation rates of LBGs are also consistent with this
identification. Simple formation models tuned to give good fits to low redshift
galaxies can predict the distribution of these quantities in the LBG
population. The LBGs should be small (with typical half-light radii of 0.6-2
kpc/h), should inhabit haloes of moderately high circular velocity (180-290
km/s) but have low stellar velocity dispersions (70-120 km/s) and should have
substantial star formation rates (15-100 Msun/yr). The numbers here refer to
the predicted median values in the LBG sample of Adelberger et al. (1998); the
first assumes an Omega=1 universe and the second a flat universe with
Omega=0.3. For either cosmology these predictions are consistent with the
current (rather limited) observational data. Following the work of Kennicutt
(1998) we assume stars to form more rapidly in gas of higher surface density.
This predicts that LBG samples should preferentially contain objects with low
angular momentum, and so small size, for their mass. In contrast, samples of
damped Lyman alpha systems (DLSs), should be biased towards objects with large
angular momentum. Bright LBGs and DLSs may therefore form distinct populations,
with very different sizes and star formation rates, LBGs being smaller and more
metal-rich than DLSs of similar mass and redshift.
