The rates and modes of gas accretion on to galaxies and their gaseous haloes

By F. V. D. Voort, Joop Schaye, C. Booth, M. Haas, C. D. L. Observatory, L. U. M. P. I. F. E. Physics. 2010

250 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the rate at which gas accretes on to galaxies and haloes and investigate whether the accreted gas was shocked to high temperatures before reaching a galaxy. For this purpose we use a suite of large cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations from the OWLS project. We improve on previous work by considering a wider range of halo masses and redshifts, by distinguishing accretion on to haloes and galaxies, by including important feedback processes, and by comparing simulations with different physics. Gas accretion is mostly smooth, with mergers only becoming important for groups and clusters. The specific rate of gas accretion on to haloes is, like that for dark matter, only weakly dependent on halo mass. For halo masses Mhalo � 10 11 Mit is relatively insensitive to feedback processes. In contrast, accretion rates on to galaxies are determined by radiative cooling and by outflows driven by supernovae and active galactic nuclei. Galactic winds increase the halo mass at which the central galaxies grow the fastest by about two orders of magnitude to Mhalo � 10 12 M� . Gas accretion is bimodal, with maximum past temperatures either of order the virial temperature or . 10 5 K. The fraction of gas accreted on to haloes in the hot mode is insensitive to feedback and metal-line cooling. It increases with redshift, but is mostly determined by halo mass, increasing gradually from less than 10% for � 10 11 Mto greater than 90% at � 10 13 M� . In contrast, for accretion on to galaxies the cold mode is always significant and the relative contributions of the two accretion modes are more sensitive to feedback and metal-line cooling. On average, the majority of stars present in any mass halo at any redshift were formed from gas accreted in the cold mode, although the hot mode contributes typically over 10% for Mhalo & 10 11 M� . Thus, while gas accretion on to haloes can be robustly predicted, the rate of accretion on to galaxies is sensitive to uncertain feedback processes. Nevertheless, it is clear that galaxies, but not their gaseous haloes, are predominantly fed by gas that did not experience an accretion shock when it entered the host halo.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/233d85b535457adf762b22441418ad9b408ed063

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Instrumentation

Citations in the corpus

LoCuSS: THE SLOW QUENCHING OF STAR FORMATION IN CLUSTER GALAXIES AND THE NEED FOR PRE-PROCESSING (2015, background): “…regions, such as the infall regions of massive clusters, form earlier, have more active merger histories, and have much lower mass accretion rates (and commensurate gas accretion rates; van de Voort et al. 2011) at late epochs (z 0.5) than those which form in low-density field environments.”
THE GASEOUS ENVIRONMENT OF HIGH-z GALAXIES: PRECISION MEASUREMENTS OF NEUTRAL HYDROGEN IN THE CIRCUMGALACTIC MEDIUM OF z ∼ 2–3 GALAXIES IN THE KECK BARYONIC STRUCTURE SURVEY (2012, background): “The galaxies in our sample have halo masses comparable to the theoretically expected transition mass between “cold mode” and “hot mode” accretion (van de Voort et al. 2011b; Faucher-Giguère et al. 2011; Kereš et al. 2009; Ocvirk et al. 2008); most of these authors predict that both hot and cold…”
The baryonic assembly of dark matter haloes (2011, methodology): “An important exception is the recent study of van de Voort et al. (2011), who quantified many of the relevant quantities using hydrodynamical simulations from the Overwhelmingly Large Simulations (OWLS) project (Schaye et al. 2010) in a general study of gas accretion on to galaxies and haloes.”
The Giant Gemini GMOS survey of zem > 4.4 quasars – I. Measuring the mean free path across cosmic time (2014, background): “…of galaxy formation do predict a significant reservoir of cool, dense gas accreting on to galaxies via ‘cold streams’ that span the dark matter haloes (Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Dekel & Birnboim 2006; Ocvirk, Pichon & Teyssier 2008; Dekel et al. 2009; Kereš et al. 2009; van de Voort et al. 2011).”
Absorption-line systems in simulated galaxies fed by cold streams (2011, background): “…needed to explore stronger wind models and to understand the interaction between outflowing and inflowing gas (e.g. Razoumov 2009; Powell, Slyz & Devriendt 2010; van de Voort et al. 2011), before we can reconcile both the Lyα and metal absorption profiles with a combination of inflows and outflows.”
Extended Lyman-alpha emission from cold accretion streams (2011, methodology): “Furthermore, as shown by van de Voort et al. (2011b), Faucher-Giguère et al. (2011), and van de Voort & Schaye (2011), feedback driven c© 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 000–000 winds can destroy cold accretion streams in the vicinity of galaxies, hence terminating their Lyα emissivities.”
A characteristic scale for cold gas (2016, background): “…both analytic studies (e. g. White & Rees, 1978; Birnboim & Dekel, 2003; Maller & Bullock, 2004) and cosmological simulations (e. g. van de Voort et al., 2011; Fumagalli et al., 2014; Nelson et al., 2013; Fielding et al., 2016) consistently predict its presence, and stacked observations…”
The properties of the star-forming interstellar medium at z = 0.84-2.23 from HiZELS : mapping the internal dynamics and metallicity gradients in high-redshift disc galaxies. (2012, background): “…simulations indicate that the majority of massive galaxies at z = 1–3, the epoch when galaxies were most rapidly growing their stellar mass, are continuously fed by gas which promotes and maintains star formation (Bournaud & Elmegreen 2009; Dekel et al. 2009a; van de Voort et al. 2011, 2012).”
THE CIRCUMGALACTIC MEDIUM OF MASSIVE GALAXIES AT z ∼ 3: A TEST FOR STELLAR FEEDBACK, GALACTIC OUTFLOWS, AND COLD STREAMS (2012, background): “…get their gas and sacrificed numerical resolution on individual galaxy scales (e.g. Kereš et al. 2005; Ocvirk et al. 2008; Dekel et al. 2009; van de Voort et al. 2011), or used “zoom-in” simulations that do not generate strong galactic winds and hence cannot address the complex interaction…”
An analytic model for the evolution of the stellar, gas and metal content of galaxies (2011, background): “Recent results (Oppenheimer et al. 2010; van de Voort et al. 2011; Faucher-Giguere, Kereš, & Ma 2011) have demonstrated that this can be a significant effect in plausible (though somewhat extreme) wind models.”
Galaxy Evolution in Cosmological Simulations with Outflows II: Metallicities and Gas Fractions (2011, background): “At low masses, the sSFR is lowered owing to preventive effects of winds adding energy to surrounding gas (e.g. Oppenheimer et al. 2010; van de Voort et al. 2011).”
The origin of discs and spheroids in simulated galaxies (2011, background): “If Tmax exceeds 10 5.5 K, then in all likelihood it was accreted by gradual cooling from a shock-heated, nearly hydrostatic gas corona (see e.g. Crain et al. 2010; van de Voort et al. 2011).”
Gusty, gaseous flows of FIRE: Galactic winds in cosmological simulations with explicit stellar feedback (2015, background): “This suggests that inflows can geometrically overlap with outflows and interact with them (see also Oppenheimer et al. 2010; Faucher-Giguère et al. 2011, 2015; FaucherGiguère & Kereš 2011; van de Voort et al. 2011).”
Galaxy evolution in cosmological simulations with outflows ― I. Stellar masses and star formation rates (2011, background): “Gas replenishment from the IGM is a natural outcome of this model, and generally occurs smoothly rather than being driven by major mergers (e.g. Murali et al. 2002; Kereš et al. 2005; van de Voort et al. 2010).”
Moving mesh cosmology: tracing cosmological gas accretion (2013, methodology): “The technical distinction is not particularly important as smooth accretion (defined as all gas not identified as clumpy) is generally found to be the dominant contribution to the total accretion rate (van de Voort et al. 2011).”
Star formation sustained by gas accretion (2014, background): “Simulations suggest that direct accretion from the cosmic web dominates mergers by about an order of magnitude (e.g., Wang et al. 2011; L’Huillier et al. 2012; Combes 2013; van de Voort et al. 2011).”