scholarly journals The formation times and building blocks of Milky Way-mass galaxies in the FIRE simulations

2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (1) ◽  
pp. 747-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaiah B Santistevan ◽  
Andrew Wetzel ◽  
Kareem El-Badry ◽  
Joss Bland-Hawthorn ◽  
Michael Boylan-Kolchin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Mass System ◽  
Cosmological Context ◽  
Bulge Region

ABSTRACT Surveys of the Milky Way (MW) and M31 enable detailed studies of stellar populations across ages and metallicities, with the goal of reconstructing formation histories across cosmic time. These surveys motivate key questions for galactic archaeology in a cosmological context: When did the main progenitor of an MW/M31-mass galaxy form, and what were the galactic building blocks that formed it? We investigate the formation times and progenitor galaxies of MW/M31-mass galaxies using the Feedback In Realistic Environments-2 cosmological simulations, including six isolated MW/M31-mass galaxies and six galaxies in Local Group (LG)-like pairs at z = 0. We examine main progenitor ‘formation’ based on two metrics: (1) transition from primarily ex-situ to in-situ stellar mass growth and (2) mass dominance compared to other progenitors. We find that the main progenitor of an MW/M31-mass galaxy emerged typically at z ∼ 3–4 ($11.6\!\!-\!\!12.2\, \rm {Gyr}$ ago), while stars in the bulge region (inner 2 kpc) at z = 0 formed primarily in a single main progenitor at z ≲ 5 (${\lesssim} \!12.6\, \rm {Gyr}$ ago). Compared with isolated hosts, the main progenitors of LG-like paired hosts emerged significantly earlier (Δz ∼ 2, $\Delta t\!\sim \!1.6\, \rm {Gyr}$), with ∼4× higher stellar mass at all z ≳ 4 (${\gtrsim} \!12.2\, \rm {Gyr}$ ago). This highlights the importance of environment in MW/M31-mass galaxy formation, especially at early times. On average, about 100 galaxies with $\rm {\it{ M}}_\rm {star}\!\gtrsim \!10^5\, \rm {M}_\odot$ went into building a typical MW/M31-mass system. Thus, surviving satellites represent a highly incomplete census (by ∼5×) of the progenitor population.

scholarly journals The prevalence of pseudo-bulges in the Auriga simulations

2019 ◽  
Vol 489 (4) ◽  
pp. 5742-5763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio D Gargiulo ◽  
Antonela Monachesi ◽  
Facundo A Gómez ◽  
Robert J J Grand ◽  
Federico Marinacci ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Milky Way ◽  
Classification Criteria ◽  
Moving Mesh ◽  
Formation Mechanisms ◽  
Mass Growth ◽  
Cosmological Context ◽  
Stellar Halo ◽  
Bulge Region ◽  
Bulge Formation

ABSTRACT We study the galactic bulges in the Auriga simulations, a suite of 30 cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical zoom-in simulations of late-type galaxies in Milky Way sized dark matter haloes performed with the moving-mesh code arepo. We aim to characterize bulge formation mechanisms in this large suite of galaxies simulated at high resolution in a fully cosmological context. The bulges of the Auriga galaxies show a large variety in their shapes, sizes, and formation histories. According to observational classification criteria, such as Sérsic index and degree of ordered rotation, the majority of the Auriga bulges can be classified as pseudo-bulges, while some of them can be seen as composite bulges with a classical component; however, none can be classified as a classical bulge. Auriga bulges show mostly an in situ origin, $21{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of them with a negligible accreted fraction (facc < 0.01). In general, their in situ component was centrally formed, with ${\sim}75{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the bulges forming most of their stars inside the bulge region at z = 0. Part of their in situ mass growth is rapid and is associated with the effects of mergers, while another part is more secular in origin. In $90{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the Auriga bulges, the accreted bulge component originates from less than four satellites. We investigate the relation between the accreted stellar haloes and the bulges of the Auriga simulations. The total bulge mass shows no correlation with the accreted stellar halo mass, as in observations. However, the accreted mass of bulges tends to correlate with their respective accreted stellar halo mass.

scholarly journals The origin of dust in galaxies across cosmic time

2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (2) ◽  
pp. 2490-2505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dian P Triani ◽  
Manodeep Sinha ◽  
Darren J Croton ◽  
Camilla Pacifici ◽  
Eli Dwek
Keyword(s):  
Grain Growth ◽  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Mass Function ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Asymptotic Giant Branch ◽  
Scaling Relations ◽  
Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Dust Mass

ABSTRACT We study the dust evolution in galaxies by implementing a detailed dust prescription in the SAGE semi-analytical model (SAM) for galaxy formation. The new model, called Dusty SAGE, follows the condensation of dust in the ejecta of Type II supernovae and asymptotic giant branch stars, grain growth in the dense molecular clouds, destruction by supernovae shocks, and the removal of dust from the interstellar medium (ISM) by star formation, reheating, inflows, and outflows. Our model successfully reproduces the observed dust mass function at redshift z = 0 and the observed scaling relations for dust across a wide range of redshifts. We find that the dust mass content in the present Universe is mainly produced via grain growth in the ISM. By contrast, in the early Universe, the primary production mechanism for dust is the condensation in stellar ejecta. The shift of the significant production channel for dust characterizes the scaling relations of dust-to-gas (DTG) and dust-to-metal (DTM) ratios. In galaxies where the grain growth dominates, we find positive correlations for DTG and DTM ratios with both metallicity and stellar mass. On the other hand, in galaxies where dust is produced primarily via condensation, we find negative or no correlation for DTM and DTG ratios with either metallicity or stellar mass. In agreement with observation showing that the circumgalactic medium contains more dust than the ISM, our model also shows the same trend for z &lt; 4. Our SAM is publicly available at https://github.com/dptriani/dusty-sage.

scholarly journals A galaxy’s accretion history unveiled from its integrated spectrum

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Boecker ◽  
Ryan Leaman ◽  
Glenn van de Ven ◽  
Mark A Norris ◽  
J Ted Mackereth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stellar Populations ◽  
Mass Function ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Future Application ◽  
Chemical Enrichment ◽  
Spectral Fitting ◽  
Regularization Techniques ◽  
Galaxy Masses

Abstract We present a new method of quantifying a galaxy’s accretion history from its integrated spectrum alone. Using full spectral fitting and calibrated regularization techniques we show how we can accurately derive a galaxy’s mass distribution in age-metallicity space and further separate this into stellar populations from different chemical enrichment histories. By exploiting the fact that accreted lower mass galaxies will exhibit an offset to lower metallicities at fixed age compared to the in-situ stellar population, we quantify the fraction of light that comes from past merger events, that are long since mixed in phase-space and otherwise indistinguishable. Empirical age-metallicity relations (AMRs) parameterized for different galaxy masses are used to identify the accreted stellar populations and link them back to the progenitor galaxy’s stellar mass. This allows us to not only measure the host galaxy’s total ex-situ mass fraction (facc), but also quantify the relative amount of accreted material deposited by satellite galaxies of different masses, i.e. the accreted satellite mass function in analogy to the subhalo mass function. Using mock spectra of present-day, early-type galaxies with total stellar mass ∼109 − 1012 M⊙ from the EAGLE simulation suite we demonstrate that our method can recover the total accreted fraction to within $\approx 38 \%$, the stellar mass of the most massive accreted subhalo to within $\approx 56 \%$ and the slope of the accreted satellite mass function to within $\approx 17 \%$ of the true values from the EAGLE merger trees. Future application of this method to observations could potentially provide us accretion histories of hundreds of individual galaxies, for which deep integrated light spectroscopy is available.

scholarly journals Closure between particulate matter concentrations measured ex situ by thermal–optical analysis and in situ by the CPMA–electrometer reference mass system

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (11) ◽  
pp. 1293-1309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel C. Corbin ◽  
Alireza Moallemi ◽  
Fengshan Liu ◽  
Stéphanie Gagné ◽  
Jason S. Olfert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Particulate Matter ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Optical Analysis ◽  
Mass System

Stellar Populations of the Outer Milky-Way Halo

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (S334) ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Baslio Santiago ◽  
Elmer Luque ◽  
Adriano Pieres ◽  
Anna Bárbara Queiroz
Keyword(s):  
Galaxy Evolution ◽  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Galactic Halo ◽  
Dwarf Galaxy ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Dark Energy Survey ◽  
Stellar Streams ◽  
The Galaxy

AbstractThe stellar spheroidal components of the Milky-Way contain the oldest and most metal poor of its stars. Inevitably the processes governing the early stages of Galaxy evolution are imprinted upon them. According to the currently favoured hierarchical bottom-up scenario of galaxy formation, these components, specially the Galactic halo, are the repository of most of the mass built up from accretion events in those early stages. These events are still going on today, as attested by the long stellar streams associated to the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy and several other observed tidal substructure, whose geometry, extent, and kinematics are important constraints to reconstruct the MW gravitational potential and infer its total (visible + dark) mass. In addition, the remaining system of MW satellites is expected to be a fossil record of the much larger population of Galactic building blocks that once existed and got accreted. For all these reasons, it is crucial to unravel as much of this remaining population as possible, as well as the current stellar streams that orbit within the halo. The best bet to achieve this task is to carry out wide, deep, and multi-band photometric surveys that provide homogeneous stellar samples. In this contribution, we summarize the results of several years of work towards detecting and characterizing distant MW stellar systems, star clusters and dwarf spheroidals alike, with an emphasis on the analysis of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We argue that most of the volume in distance, size and luminosity space, both in the Galaxy and in the Clouds, is still unprobed. We then discuss the perspectives of exploring this outer MW volume using the current surveys, as well as other current and future surveys, such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

scholarly journals The Connection Between Galaxies and Their Dark Matter Halos

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 435-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risa H. Wechsler ◽  
Jeremy L. Tinker
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Dark Matter Halo ◽  
Strong Function ◽  
Galaxy Surveys ◽  
Narrow Region ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Galaxy Halo

In our modern understanding of galaxy formation, every galaxy forms within a dark matter halo. The formation and growth of galaxies over time is connected to the growth of the halos in which they form. The advent of large galaxy surveys as well as high-resolution cosmological simulations has provided a new window into the statistical relationship between galaxies and halos and its evolution. Here, we define this galaxy–halo connection as the multivariate distribution of galaxy and halo properties that can be derived from observations and simulations. This galaxy–halo connection provides a key test of physical galaxy-formation models; it also plays an essential role in constraints of cosmological models using galaxy surveys and in elucidating the properties of dark matter using galaxies. We review techniques for inferring the galaxy–halo connection and the insights that have arisen from these approaches. Some things we have learned are that galaxy-formation efficiency is a strong function of halo mass; at its peak in halos around a pivot halo mass of 1012M⊙, less than 20% of the available baryons have turned into stars by the present day; the intrinsic scatter in galaxy stellar mass is small, less than 0.2 dex at a given halo mass above this pivot mass; below this pivot mass galaxy stellar mass is a strong function of halo mass; the majority of stars over cosmic time were formed in a narrow region around this pivot mass. We also highlight key open questions about how galaxies and halos are connected, including understanding the correlations with secondary properties and the connection of these properties to galaxy clustering.

scholarly journals Origin of strong magnetic fields in Milky Way-like galaxies

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (S317) ◽  
pp. 274-275
Author(s):  
Alexander M. Beck
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Strong Magnetic Fields ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
The Universe

AbstractMagnetic fields are observed on all scales in the Universe (see e.g. Kronberg 1994), but little is known about the origin and evolution of those fields with cosmic time. Seed fields of arbitrary source must be amplified to present-day values and distributed among cosmic structures. Therefore, the emergence of cosmic magnetic fields and corresponding dynamo processes (see e.g. Zel'dovich et al. 1983; Kulsrud et al. 1997) can only be jointly understood with the very basic processes of structure and galaxy formation (see e.g. Mo et al. 2010).

scholarly journals Modelling the outskirts of galaxies in a cosmological context

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (S321) ◽  
pp. 69-71
Author(s):  
Andrew P. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Surface Brightness ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Mass Function ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Cosmological Simulations ◽  
Cosmological Context ◽  
Profile Amplitude

AbstractCurrent data broadly support trends of galaxy surface brightness profile amplitude and shape with total stellar mass predicted by state-of-the-art ΛCDM cosmological simulations, although recent results show signs of interesting discrepancies, particularly for galaxies less massive than the Milky Way. Here I discuss how perhaps the largest contribution to such discrepancies can be inferred almost directly from how well a given model agrees with the observed present-day galaxy stellar mass function.

scholarly journals The artemis simulations: stellar haloes of Milky Way-mass galaxies

2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (2) ◽  
pp. 1765-1785 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreea S Font ◽  
Ian G McCarthy ◽  
Robert Poole-Mckenzie ◽  
Sam G Stafford ◽  
Shaun T Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Mass Density ◽  
Power Laws ◽  
Stellar Feedback ◽  
Radial Profiles ◽  
Hydrodynamical Simulations

ABSTRACT We introduce the Assembly of high-ResoluTion Eagle-simulations of MIlky Way-type galaxieS (artemis) simulations, a new set of 42 zoomed-in, high-resolution (baryon particle mass of $\approx 2\times 10^4 \, {\rm M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$), hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies residing in haloes of Milky Way mass, simulated with the eagle galaxy formation code with re-calibrated stellar feedback. In this study, we analyse the structure of stellar haloes, specifically the mass density, surface brightness, metallicity, colour, and age radial profiles, finding generally very good agreement with recent observations of local galaxies. The stellar density profiles are well fitted by broken power laws, with inner slopes of ≈−3, outer slopes of ≈−4, and break radii that are typically ≈20–40 kpc. The break radii generally mark the transition between in situ formation and accretion-driven formation of the halo. The metallicity, colour, and age profiles show mild large-scale gradients, particularly when spherically averaged or viewed along the major axes. Along the minor axes, however, the profiles are nearly flat, in agreement with observations. Overall, the structural properties can be understood by two factors: that in situ stars dominate the inner regions and that they reside in a spatially flattened distribution that is aligned with the disc. Observations targeting both the major and minor axes of galaxies are thus required to obtain a complete picture of stellar haloes.

scholarly journals The extended epoch of galaxy formation: Age dating of ~3600 galaxies with 2 < z < 6.5 in the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey

2017 ◽  
Vol 602 ◽  
pp. A35 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Thomas ◽  
O. Le Fèvre ◽  
M. Scodeggio ◽  
P. Cassata ◽  
B. Garilli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Star Formation ◽  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Formation Rate ◽  
Cosmic Time ◽  
Stellar Mass ◽  
Age Dating ◽  
Joint Analysis ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Deep Survey

In this paper we aim at improving constraints on the epoch of galaxy formation by measuring the ages of 3597 galaxies with reliable spectroscopic redshifts 2 ≤ z ≤ 6.5 in the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey (VUDS). We derive ages and other physical parameters from the simultaneous fitting with the GOSSIP+ software of observed UV rest-frame spectra and photometric data from the u band up to 4.5 μm using model spectra from composite stellar populations. We perform extensive simulations and conclude that at z ≥ 2 the joint analysis of spectroscopy and photometry, combined with restricted age possibilities when taking the age of the Universe into account, substantially reduces systematic uncertainties and degeneracies in the age derivation; we find that age measurements from this process are reliable. We find that galaxy ages range from very young with a few tens of million years to substantially evolved with ages up to 1.5 Gyr or more. This large age spread is similar for different age definitions including ages corresponding to the last major star formation event, stellar mass-weighted ages, and ages corresponding to the time since the formation of 25% of the stellar mass. We derive the formation redshift zf from the measured ages and find galaxies that may have started forming stars as early as zf ~ 15. We produce the formation redshift function (FzF), the number of galaxies per unit volume formed at a redshift zf, and compare the FzF in increasing observed redshift bins finding a remarkably constant FzF. The FzF is parametrized with (1 + z)ζ, where ζ ≃ 0.58 ± 0.06, indicating a smooth increase of about 2 dex from the earliest redshifts, z ~ 15, to the lowest redshifts of our sample at z ~ 2. Remarkably, this observed increase in the number of forming galaxies is of the same order as the observed rise in the star formation rate density (SFRD). The ratio of the comoving SFRD with the FzF gives an average SFR per galaxy of ~7−17M⊙/yr at z ~ 4−6, in agreement with the measured SFR for galaxies at these redshifts. From the smooth rise in the FzF we infer that the period of galaxy formation extends all the way from the highest possible formation redshifts that we can probe at z ~ 15 down to redshifts z ~ 2. This indicates that galaxy formation is a continuous process over cosmic time, with a higher number of galaxies forming at the peak in SFRD at z ~ 2 than at earlier epochs.

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