Galaxy bimodality due to cold flows and shock heating

By A. Dekel, Y. Birnboim. 2004

1,330 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We address the origin of the robust bimodality observed in galaxy properties about a characteristic stellar mass ∼3 x 10 10 M ⊙ . Less massive galaxies tend to be ungrouped blue star forming discs, while more massive galaxies are typically grouped red old-star spheroids. Colour-magnitude data show a gap between the red and blue sequences, extremely red luminous galaxies already at z ∼ 1, a truncation of today's blue sequence above L*, and massive starbursts at z ∼ 2-4. We propose that these features are driven by the thermal properties of the inflowing gas and their interplay with the clustering and feedback processes, all functions of the dark matter halo mass and associated with a similar characteristic scale. In haloes below a critical shock-heating mass M shock ≤ 10 12 M ⊙ , discs are built by cold streams, not heated by a virial shock, yielding efficient early star formation. It is regulated by supernova feedback into a long sequence of bursts in blue galaxies constrained to a 'fundamental line'. Cold streams penetrating through hot media in M ≥ M shock haloes preferentially at z ≥ 2 lead to massive starbursts in L > L* galaxies. At z M shock haloes hosting groups, the gas is heated by a virial shock, and being dilute it becomes vulnerable to feedback from energetic sources such as active galactic nuclei. This shuts off gas supply and prevents further star formation, leading by passive evolution to 'red-and-dead' massive spheroids starting at z ∼ 1. A minimum in feedback efficiency near M shock explains the observed minimum in M/L and the qualitative features of the star formation history. The cold flows provide a hint for solving the angular momentum problem. When these processes are incorporated in simulations they recover the main bimodality features and solve other open puzzles.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/06cf7e096ed3fd4239f7e90e3a5a98e0ec7cfa55

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. R. Dav'e
4. Volker Springel
5. R. Somerville
6. A. Dekel
7. C. Conroy
8. T. Naab

In Global and Planetary Change

1. F. V. D. Bosch
2. P. Hopkins
3. Simon D. M. White
4. H. Mo
5. L. Hernquist
6. A. Dekel
7. Xiaohu Yang
8. Volker Springel

Citations in the corpus

• A Revised Model for the Formation of Disk Galaxies: Low Spin and Dark Halo Expansion (2006, background): “Indeed, the physics of gas cooling suggests that disks may have formed out of clumpy, cold streams rather than from a smooth cooling flow (Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Maller & Bullock 2004; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Kaufmann et al. 2006; Keres et al. 2005).”
• Environment and self-regulation in galaxy formation (2009, background): “…renditions of semi-analytic, hierarchical galaxy formation models include a prescription of AGN feedback (Cattaneo et al. 2005, 2007; Bower et al. 2006; Cattaneo et al. 2006; Croton et al. 2006; De Lucia et al. 2006; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Cavaliere & Menci 2007; Monaco, Fontanot & Taffoni 2007).”
• Rapid Formation of Exponential Disks and Bulges at High Redshift from the Dynamical Evolution of Clump-Cluster and Chain Galaxies (2007, background): “…spirals like the Milky Way have higher thin-to-thick disk mass fractions (see Robin et al. 2003 for the Milky Way), suggesting that they further evolved after the primordial unstable phases, possibly having a massive thin disk grown by gas accretion (Bournaud & Combes 2002, Dekel & Birnboim 2006).”
• The Morphologies of Massive Galaxies at 1<z<3 in the CANDELS-UDS Field: Compact Bulges, and the Rise and Fall of Massive Disks (2012, background): “…from the latest generation of hydrodynamical simulations (Kereš et al. 2005; Dekel et al. 2009a) and analytic theories (Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Dekel & Birnboim 2006), which suggest a formation scenario whereby at high redshift star formation in massive discs takes place through inflows of…”
• Structural and Star-forming Relations since z ∼ 3: Connecting Compact Star-forming and Quiescent Galaxies (2015, background): “The slow quenching process depends also on additional mechanisms to prevent further gas accretion into the disk, e.g., virial shock heating in massive haloes (Croton et al. 2006; Dekel & Birnboim 2006) or AGN feedback (.”
• PRIMUS: CONSTRAINTS ON STAR FORMATION QUENCHING AND GALAXY MERGING, AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR MASS FUNCTION FROM z = 0–1 (2013, background): “…Di Matteo et al. 2005); processes that prevent galaxies from replenishing their cold-gas supply such as virial shock heating (Kereš et al. 2005; Dekel & Birnboim 2006), often in concert with so-called radio-mode feedback from an accreting active galactic nucleus (AGN; Croton et al. 2006;…”
• The evolution of massive black holes and their spins in their galactic hosts (2012, background): “…Kauffmann, White, & Guiderdoni (1993); Cole et al. (1994, 2000); Somerville & Primack (1999)), we also include the effects of cold accretion flows (Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Dekel et al. 2009; Cattaneo et al. 2006), which have been shown to be the predominant mechanism leading to the formation of…”
• Dynamical Properties of z ~ 2 Star-forming Galaxies and a Universal Star Formation Relation (2007, background): “Given that the kinematics of UVand optical star-forming galaxies are consistent with that of large protodisks, these systems may have evolved in a less violent fashion through a series ofminor mergers, or through cold gas flows from the halo (Keres et al. 2005; Dekel & Birnboim 2006).”
• A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. II. Formation of Red Ellipticals (2007, background): “Nevertheless, we include it here because it is linked tomergers in a critical way: almost universally, the forms of maintenance feedback require the presence of a relatively massive BH (e.g., Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Binney 2004; Croton et al. 2006; Sijacki et al. 2007).”
• Galaxy evolution in groups and clusters: satellite star formation histories and quenching time-scales in a hierarchical Universe (2012, background): “Additionally, if the host halo is massive enough to host a stable, virial accretion shock (Dekel & Birnboim 2006), then its thermalized gas also can heat and strip any extended gas in the subhalo (Balogh et al. 2000; Kawata & Mulchaey 2008; McCarthy et al. 2008).”
• THE ERA OF STAR FORMATION IN GALAXY CLUSTERS (2013, background): “The observed starbursts are not likely to be driven by cold-mode accretion (e.g., Kereš et al. 2005; Dekel and Birnboim 2006; Dekel et al. 2009; Nelson et al. 2013) as these cluster galaxies reside within a hot ICM that should prevent cold streams to all galaxies except possibly the BCG.”
• Radio and millimeter continuum surveys and their astrophysical implications (2009, background): “According to the standard scenario (Rees & Ostriker 1977; White & Rees 1978), the collapsing proto-galactic gas is shock-heated to the virial temperature, at least in the case of large halo masses ( >∼ 1012 M⊙, Dekel & Birnboim 2006).”
• The rates and modes of gas accretion on to galaxies and their gaseous haloes (2010, background): “It has been argued by several authors that AGN feedback would therefore couple mostly to the hot gas (Kereš et al. 2005; Dekel & Birnboim 2006).”
• On the origin of the galaxy star‐formation‐rate sequence: evolution and scatter (2009, background): “Birnboim & Dekel (2003) and Dekel & Birnboim (2006) argued that in haloes below a characteristic mass of ∼1012 h−1 M , galaxies accrete most of their gas via ‘cold flows’, in which the gas is never heated to the virial temperature of the halo.”
• Lyα COOLING EMISSION FROM GALAXY FORMATION (2010, methodology): “This redshift evolution is reminiscent of the gradual disappearance of the cold mode at low redshift predicted by theoretical studies (e.g., Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Kereš et al. 2005, 2009b).”
• THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 (2009, background): “…times; this could be due to feedback from an active nucleus (e.g., Croton et al. 2006; Bower et al. 2006), virial shock heating of the gas (e.g., Dekel & Birnboim 2006), gravitational heating due to accretion of gas or galaxies (e.g., Naab et al. 2007; Dekel & Birnboim 2008; Johansson, Naab, &…”
• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation (2008, background): “The existence of such a threshold mass and its value as a function of redshift have been confirmed by the analysis of cosmological simulations.(9,8,23,5) However, at high redshifts, even above the threshold mass, a shock is not”
• THE STRUCTURE AND KINEMATICS OF THE CIRCUMGALACTIC MEDIUM FROM FAR-ULTRAVIOLET SPECTRA OF z ≃ 2–3 GALAXIES (2010, background): “…evidence for an accreting component of cool gas is the half withMhalo >∼ 10 12 M⊙, i.e. close to the critical mass at which virial shocks begin to prevent cold gas from streaming to the central regions of the galaxy (e.g., Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Ceverino et al. 2009, but cf. Kereš et al. 2009).”