scholarly journals Galaxy Formation: the Role of Gravitational Collisions

1999 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 151-151
Author(s):  
C. Balland ◽  
J. Silk ◽  
R. Schaeffer

Some aspect of a semi-empirical model of galaxy formation is presented. In this model, galaxy formation proceeds through a series of rapid non-merging collisions with surrounding objects. For a given galaxy, a collision at an epoch z is characterized in terms of the fractional rate of change of binding energy induced by the tidal field [1]. The total rate of change of binding energy during the lifetime of the galaxy is computed in an Einstein-de Sitter universe, assuming that collisions continuously occur from birth up to the present day against a set of background galaxies with various masses. Rules for the formation of morphological types are then derived along the following (phenomenological) line: substantial or efficient collisions – characterized by a high rate of energy exchange – drive the formation of elliptical galaxies, whereas little or inefficient collisions lead to the formation of disks. These rules are coupled to the Press & Schechter mass function for a Cold Dark Matter spectrum normalized to the present distribution of X-ray clusters, allowing one to predict the evolution, for each morphological type, of number densities as a function of redshift. The model reproduces the observed present-day morphology-density relation [2] and predicts the formation redshift of field ellipticals to be z ≥ 2, while spirals form at z ≤ 1.5. Predictions are made for the redshift evolution of morphological populations in the field as well as in clusters (see [3] for more details).

1987 ◽  
Vol 117 ◽  
pp. 360-360
Author(s):  
Edmund Bertschinger

ABSTRACT The mass spectrum of bound baryonic systems (galaxies and globular clusters) is computed as a function of redshift in an Einstein-de Sitter (Ω=1) universe dominated by weakly interacting, cold dark matter. Baryons are assumed to fall into primordial density peaks in the cold particle distribution when the mass in the peaks exceeds the baryon Jeans mass. The distribution of peaks is computed using Gaussian statistics. As the universe expands the baryonic mass attached to a given peak increases because of infall (treated in a spherical approximation), and new peaks of lower amplitude become nonlinear. Globular clusters form first (by z∼40 if the galaxies represent a biased mass distribution). The remaining gas may be reheated to ∼10000 K if a few percent of globular cluster (or Pop. III) stars are very massive. Reheating increases the baryon Jeans mass and delays galaxy formation until z≲10. The present method reproduces the shape (but not the amplitude) of the Schechter galaxy mass function when merging of substructure is included in an approximate fashion.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (A29B) ◽  
pp. 696-698
Author(s):  
Nir Mandelker ◽  
Avishai Dekel

AbstractAccording to the ΛCDM paradigm of cosmology, galaxies form at the centers of dark matter (DM) halos. While galaxy formation involves complex baryonic physics, the formation of DM halos is governed solely by gravity and cosmology. As a result, many of their properties exhibit a near scale-free behaviour, self-similar in either halo mass, cosmic time or both. This is especially true in the Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) regime, valid at redshifts z ≳ 1, when cosmological scaling relations become particularly simple, and in the narrow mass range of normal galaxies, where the fluctuation power spectrum can be approximated by a power law. Since many galaxy properties are strongly correlated with halo mass, they tend to exhibit a self-similar behaviour as well. A partial list of self-similar properties include the mass function of DM halos, the structure of the cosmic web, the accretion/merger rate of matter onto halos, the density profiles of DM halos and their angular momentum, which eventually determines the galaxy structure. We briefly review these below, and comment on how they can be used in conjunction with simple toy models to gain insight into galaxy formation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 491 (1) ◽  
pp. 1295-1310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Despali ◽  
Mark Lovell ◽  
Simona Vegetti ◽  
Robert A Crain ◽  
Benjamin D Oppenheimer

ABSTRACT We use high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations run with the EAGLE model of galaxy formation to study the differences between the properties of – and subsequently the lensing signal from – subhaloes of massive elliptical galaxies at redshift 0.2, in Cold and Sterile Neutrino (SN) Dark Matter models. We focus on the two 7 keV SN models that bracket the range of matter power spectra compatible with resonantly produced SN as the source of the observed 3.5 keV line. We derive an accurate parametrization for the subhalo mass function in these two SN models relative to cold dark matter (CDM), as well as the subhalo spatial distribution, density profile, and projected number density and the dark matter fraction in subhaloes. We create mock lensing maps from the simulated haloes to study the differences in the lensing signal in the framework of subhalo detection. We find that subhalo convergence is well described by a lognormal distribution and that signal of subhaloes in the power spectrum is lower in SN models with respect to CDM, at a level of 10–80 per cent, depending on the scale. However, the scatter between different projections is large and might make the use of power spectrum studies on the typical scales of current lensing images very difficult. Moreover, in the framework of individual detections through gravitational imaging a sample of ≃30 lenses with an average sensitivity of $M_{\rm {sub}} = 5 \times 10^{7}\, {\rm M}_{\odot}$ would be required to discriminate between CDM and the considered sterile neutrino models.


Author(s):  
James Binney

In cuspy atmospheres, jets driven by supermassive black holes (BHs) offset radiative cooling. The jets fire episodically, but often enough that the cuspy atmosphere does not move very far towards a cooling catastrophe in the intervals of jet inactivity. The ability of energy released on the sub–parsec scale of the BH to balance cooling on scales of several tens of kiloparsecs arises through a combination of the temperature sensitivity of the accretion rate and the way in which the radius of jet disruption varies with ambient density. Accretion of hot gas does not significantly increase BH masses, which are determined by periods of rapid BH growth and star formation when cold gas is briefly abundant at the galactic centre. Hot gas does not accumulate in shallow potential wells. As the Universe ages, deeper wells form, and eventually hot gas accumulates. This gas soon prevents the formation of further stars, since jets powered by the BH prevent it from cooling, and it mops up most cold infalling gas before many stars can form. Thus, BHs set the upper limit to the masses of galaxies. The formation of low–mass galaxies is inhibited by a combination of photoheating and supernova–driven galactic winds. Working in tandem, these mechanisms can probably explain the profound difference between the galaxy luminosity function and the mass function of dark haloes expected in the cold dark matter cosmology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 489 (1) ◽  
pp. 487-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boyan K Stoychev ◽  
Keri L Dixon ◽  
Andrea V Macciò ◽  
Marvin Blank ◽  
Aaron A Dutton

ABSTRACT We use 38 high-resolution simulations of galaxy formation between redshift 10 and 5 to study the impact of a 3 keV warm dark matter (WDM) candidate on the high-redshift Universe. We focus our attention on the stellar mass function and the global star formation rate and consider the consequences for reionization, namely the neutral hydrogen fraction evolution and the electron scattering optical depth. We find that three different effects contribute to differentiate warm and cold dark matter (CDM) predictions: WDM suppresses the number of haloes with mass less than few 109 M⊙; at a fixed halo mass, WDM produces fewer stars than CDM, and finally at halo masses below 109 M⊙, WDM has a larger fraction of dark haloes than CDM post-reionization. These three effects combine to produce a lower stellar mass function in WDM for galaxies with stellar masses at and below 107 M⊙. For z > 7, the global star formation density is lower by a factor of two in the WDM scenario, and for a fixed escape fraction, the fraction of neutral hydrogen is higher by 0.3 at z ∼ 6. This latter quantity can be partially reconciled with CDM and observations only by increasing the escape fraction from 23 per cent to 34 per cent. Overall, our study shows that galaxy formation simulations at high redshift are a key tool to differentiate between dark matter candidates given a model for baryonic physics.


1999 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 250-250
Author(s):  
T. Hosokawa ◽  
M. Yokosawa

Several scales' density fluctuations which exist in the early universe will first gravitationally collapse along one axis and make pancake-like structures. If the collapsed baryonic pancake heats up over 104K by shock formation, radiative cooling begins to work and mass accretion toward the central region will advance. Because of this effect, mass fraction of the high density layer becomes large. Densities and widths of the layers will reflect masses of structures (e.g. galaxy) which will be formed after caustics. In this respect, we assumed an Einstein-de Sitter universe dominated by cold dark matter (ΩDM = 0.9) and investigated the evolutions of fluctuations numerically using one-dimensional hydrodynamic plus N-body codes. We applied a new method for larger fluctuation scales; it is a hybrid method of Eulerian PPM and Zeldovich approximation and it can simulate around the central pancake region with high accuracy.


1981 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 297-316
Author(s):  
Marc Aaronson

Normal galaxies emit most of their radiation longward of one micron, and many problems related to our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution can be fruitfully addressed with measurements at near-infrared wavelengths. Such problems include the make-up of the red stellar population, the star formation rate, the initial mass function, metallicity effects, and mass-to-light ratio. How these various quantities depend on morphological type, on total mass (or absolute magnitude), on radial position, and on environment is also of great interest. In this review recent infrared observations of extragalactic stars, star clusters, and galaxies having important bearing on these questions are discussed. Particular emphasis is placed on new evidence for the presence of a finite intermediate age population in early-type systems. This evidence comes from observations of intermediate age stars in many Magellanic Cloud globular clusters, observations of such stars in at least one nearby dwarf spheroidal (Fornax), the difficulties of fitting theoretical isochrone models to the red V-K colors of E and SO galaxies, and the differences in the infrared color-magnitude relations for the Virgo and Coma clusters.“It is not very bright to measure a blue magnitude for a red object.”– Vera Rubin


1983 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 391-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Michael Fall

Before theoretical ideas in this subject can be compared with observational data, it is necessary to consider the properties of galaxies that are likely to be relics of their formation. Most astronomers would agree that the list of important parameters should be headed by the total mass M, energy E and angular momentum J. Next on the list should probably be the relative contributions to these quantities from the disc and bulge components of galaxies and denoted D/B for the mass ratio. They can be estimated from the median (i.e. half-mass) radius R, velocity dispersion σ and rotation velocity v of each component, either through the virial theorem or through the luminosity L and an assumed value of M/L. As a first approximation, it is reasonable to suppose that galaxies of a given disc-to-bulge ratio or morphological type form a sequence with mass as the fundamental parameter. The comparison of theory with data is further simplified by considering the extreme cases of ellipticals, with D/B << 1, and late-type spirals, with D/B >> 1. The approach outlined below is to explore the consequences of relaxing in succession the constraints that E, J and M be conserved during the collapse of proto-galaxies. In this article I concentrate on theories that are based on some form of hierarchical clustering because the pancake and related theories are not yet refined enough for a detailed confrontation with observations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 499 (2) ◽  
pp. 2648-2661
Author(s):  
Aaron A Dutton ◽  
Tobias Buck ◽  
Andrea V Macciò ◽  
Keri L Dixon ◽  
Marvin Blank ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We use cosmological hydrodynamical galaxy formation simulations from the NIHAO project to investigate the response of cold dark matter (CDM) haloes to baryonic processes. Previous work has shown that the halo response is primarily a function of the ratio between galaxy stellar mass and total virial mass, and the density threshold above which gas is eligible to form stars, n[cm−3]. At low n all simulations in the literature agree that dwarf galaxy haloes are cuspy, but at high n ≳ 100 there is no consensus. We trace halo contraction in dwarf galaxies with n ≳ 100 reported in some previous simulations to insufficient spatial resolution. Provided the adopted star formation threshold is appropriate for the resolution of the simulation, we show that the halo response is remarkably stable for n ≳ 5, up to the highest star formation threshold that we test, n = 500. This free parameter can be calibrated using the observed clustering of young stars. Simulations with low thresholds n ≤ 1 predict clustering that is too weak, while simulations with high star formation thresholds n ≳ 5, are consistent with the observed clustering. Finally, we test the CDM predictions against the circular velocities of nearby dwarf galaxies. Low thresholds predict velocities that are too high, while simulations with n ∼ 10 provide a good match to the observations. We thus conclude that the CDM model provides a good description of the structure of galaxies on kpc scales provided the effects of baryons are properly captured.


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