Formation of Early-Type Galaxies from Cosmological Initial Conditions

By T. Naab, Peter H. Johansson, Jeremiah P. Ostriker, G. Efstathiou. 2005

342 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We describe high-resolution smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of three approximately M* field galaxies starting from ΛCDM initial conditions. The simulations are made intentionally simple, and include photoionization, cooling of the intergalactic medium, and star formation, but not feedback from AGNs or supernovae. All of the galaxies undergo an initial burst of star formation at z ≈ 5, accompanied by the formation of a bubble of heated gas. Two out of three galaxies show early-type properties at present, whereas only one of them experienced a major merger. Heating from shocks and PdV work dominates over cooling so that for most of the gas the temperature is an increasing function of time. By z ≈ 1 a significant fraction of the final stellar system is in place and the spectral energy distribution resembles those of observed massive red galaxies. The galaxies have grown from z = 1 → 0 on average by 25% in mass and in size by gas-poor (dry) stellar mergers. By the present day the simulated galaxies are old (≈10 Gyr), kinematically hot stellar systems surrounded by hot gaseous haloes. Stars dominate the mass of the galaxies up to ≈4 effective radii (≈10 kpc). Kinematic and most photometric properties are in good agreement with those of observed elliptical galaxies. The galaxy with a major merger develops a counter-rotating core. Our simulations show that realistic intermediate-mass giant elliptical galaxies with plausible formation histories can be formed from ΛCDM initial conditions even without requiring recent major mergers or feedback from supernovae or AGNs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/14df8c1a972c31b743136426bf8872ade33bc133

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. R. Dav'e
4. A. Dekel
5. M. Cappellari
6. R. Somerville
7. T. Naab
8. P. V. van Dokkum

Citations in the corpus

• Radiative Feedback from Massive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies: AGN Flaring and Central Starburst Fueled by Recycled Gas (2007, background): “These aspects of evolution are usually considered in cosmological simulations (see, e.g., Springel et al. 2005; Naab et al. 2007 and references therein), and so it would be interesting to add at the center of galaxies in those simulations the treatment of feedback physics described here.”
• Post-starburst galaxies: more than just an interesting curiosity (2008, background): “As well as allowing the building of very massive ellipticals, such a scenario matches the observed kinematic and photometric properties of present-day ellipticals (Naab, Khochfar & Burkert 2006; Naab et al. 2007).”
• THE SLOAN LENS ACS SURVEY. X. STELLAR, DYNAMICAL, AND TOTAL MASS CORRELATIONS OF MASSIVE EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES (2010, background): “Both facts provide an interesting constraint for numerical simulations that have sufficient resolution and baryonic physics to simulate the inner regions of ETGs (e.g., Robertson et al. 2006; Naab et al. 2007; González-Garćıa et al. 2009; Lackner & Ostriker 2010).”
• Gravitational quenching in massive galaxies and clusters by clumpy accretion (2007, background): “Cosmological simulations by Naab et al. (2007) and Libeskind & Dekel (2007) provide first clues that such a mechanism may actually work once the numerical resolution is sufficient for resolving small clumps (also Motl et al. 2004; Burns et al. 2007; Nagai et al. 2007).”
• THE TWO PHASES OF GALAXY FORMATION (2010, methodology): “…approaching the necessary degree of refinement (e.g. Sommer-Larsen et al. 2003; Springel & Hernquist 2003; Springel 2005; Nagamine et al. 2005; Naab et al. 2007; Governato et al. 2007; Piontek & Steinmetz 2009; Scannapieco et al. 2009; Sawala et al. 2010; Agertz et al. 2010; Schaye et al.…”
• 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): “Various physical mechanisms have been suggested as the primary drivers of this process, including major or minor mergers (Khochfar & Silk 2006; Naab et al. 2007; Hopkins et al. 2009; Shankar et al. 2011) or AGN feedback (Fan et al. 2008, 2010).”
• RED NUGGETS AT z ∼ 1.5: COMPACT PASSIVE GALAXIES AND THE FORMATION OF THE KORMENDY RELATION (2008, methodology): “A contrasting picture is painted by Naab et al. (2007) using a SPH model of individual systems.”
• AGN-driven quenching of star formation: morphological and dynamical implications for early-type galaxies (2013, methodology): “As already highlighted by many authors (e.g. Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2006; Khochfar & Silk 2006b; Maller et al. 2006; Naab et al. 2006, 2007; Bournaud et al. 2007; De Lucia & Blaizot 2007; Guo & White 2008; Hopkins et al. 2009; Nipoti et al. 2009; Feldmann et al. 2010; Shankar et al. 2013, and…”
• Two-dimensional kinematics of SLACS lenses – III. Mass structure and dynamics of early-type lens galaxies beyond z ≃ 0.1 (2011, background): “…numerical simulations has allowed to start investigating in detail the internal strucural properties of realistic systems (e.g. Meza et al. 2003, Naab et al. 2007, Jesseit et al. 2007, Oñorbe et al. 2007, González-Garcı́aet al. 2009, Johansson, Naab, & Ostriker 2009, Lackner & Ostriker 2010).”
• GRAVITATIONAL HEATING HELPS MAKE MASSIVE GALAXIES RED AND DEAD (2009, background): “In an earlier paper (Naab et al. 2007, hereafter N07) we showed that the simulated galaxies reproduce a number of observed properties of elliptical galaxies, although the simulations include neither stellar nor AGN feedback.”
• A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies. II. Formation of Red Ellipticals (2007, methodology): “This is seen in both simulations (Naab et al. 2007; D. Keres et al. 2008, in preparation; Cox et al. 2006a) and X-ray observations of galaxy groups (Jeltema et al. 2007; Vikhlinin et al. 2007).”
• WHAT TURNS GALAXIES OFF? THE DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGIES OF STAR-FORMING AND QUIESCENT GALAXIES SINCE z ∼ 2 FROM CANDELS (2011, background): “A few examples are: the heating of the gaseous halo through virialization of the gas content (Naab et al. 2007; Dekel & Birnboim 2008; Khochfar & Ostriker 2008; Johansson et al. 2009), changes in the mode of gas accretion onto galaxies as a function of dark matter halo mass (Kereš et al. 2005;…”
• The energy and momentum input of supernova explosions in structured and ionized molecular clouds (2014, background): “These conditions resemble a single, or a small number of SPH particle(s) in simulations of galaxy formation (e.g. Naab et al. 2007).”
• MINOR MERGERS AND THE SIZE EVOLUTION OF ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES (2009, methodology): “The central stellar component resembles an elliptical galaxy with properties very similar to the results presented in Naab et al. (2007) and in this letter we only focus on particular aspects of the assembly and size evolution of the stellar component.”
• Structure and Star Formation in Galaxies out to z = 3: Evidence for Surface Density Dependent Evolution and Upsizing (2008, background): “…reason, gas accretion and star formation are shut off for high density galaxies, either due to AGN (e.g., Croton et al. 2006, Bower et al. 2006), or heating of the gas due to shocks occurring naturally in massive, forming galaxies (Dekel & Birnboim 2006, Birnboim et al. 2007, Naab et al. 2007).”
• THE DEAD SEQUENCE: A CLEAR BIMODALITY IN GALAXY COLORS FROM z = 0 to z = 2.5 (2009, background): “…to suppress star formation in massive galaxies, including the muchdiscussed feedback from AGN and gravitational heating from cosmological accretion (Naab et al. 2007; Dekel & Birnboim 2008), must be able to explain the formation of the dead sequence in a variety of environments as early as z ∼ 2.5.”
• THE GROWTH OF MASSIVE GALAXIES SINCE z = 2 (2009, background): “The selection does not produce homogeneous samplesif growth occurs through 1 : 1 mergers only (and no other mergers), but that is exceedingly unlikely (see, e.g., van Dokkum 2005; Naab et al. 2007; Guo & White 2008).”
• Feedback and recycled wind accretion: assembling the z= 0 galaxy mass function (2009, background): “K09a suggest that this excess ram pressure causes some or all of the “cold drizzle” of T ≈ 104 K gas onto the central galaxies of massive halos (see also Naab et al. 2007).”