Galaxies on FIRE (Feedback In Realistic Environments): stellar feedback explains cosmologically inefficient star formation

By P. Hopkins, D. Keres̆, J. Oñorbe, C. Faucher-Giguére, E. Quataert, N. Murray, James S. Bullock. 2013

1,078 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a series of high-resolution cosmological simulations of galaxy formation to z = 0, spanning halo masses ∼10^8–10^(13) M⊙, and stellar masses ∼10^4–10^(11) M⊙. Our simulations include fully explicit treatment of the multiphase interstellar medium and stellar feedback. The stellar feedback inputs (energy, momentum, mass, and metal fluxes) are taken directly from stellar population models. These sources of feedback, with zero adjusted parameters, reproduce the observed relation between stellar and halo mass up to M_(halo) ∼ 10^(12) M⊙. We predict weak redshift evolution in the M*–M_(halo) relation, consistent with current constraints to z > 6. We find that the M*–M_(halo) relation is insensitive to numerical details, but is sensitive to feedback physics. Simulations with only supernova feedback fail to reproduce observed stellar masses, particularly in dwarf and high-redshift galaxies: radiative feedback (photoheating and radiation pressure) is necessary to destroy giant molecular clouds and enable efficient coupling of later supernovae to the gas. Star formation rates (SFRs) agree well with the observed Kennicutt relation at all redshifts. The galaxy-averaged Kennicutt relation is very different from the numerically imposed law for converting gas into stars, and is determined by self-regulation via stellar feedback. Feedback reduces SFRs and produces reservoirs of gas that lead to rising late-time star formation histories, significantly different from halo accretion histories. Feedback also produces large short-time-scale variability in galactic SFRs, especially in dwarfs. These properties are not captured by common ‘sub-grid’ wind models.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/487aef4a1e9c85a30471210e1ad6d29df3643337

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

Citations in the corpus

Predicting the LISA white dwarf binary population in the Milky Way with cosmological simulations (2019, methodology): “We use a subset of MW-like galaxies from the Feedback in Realistic Environment (FIRE; Hopkins et al. 2014) project1, including m12i (a.k.a. the “Latte” simulation; Wetzel et al. 2016, m12m and m12f (Garrison-Kimmel et al. 2017) simulations.”
The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic, and Integrated Properties (2016, background): “The largest simulations with the most advanced prescriptions for feedback (e.g., the Feedback in Realistic Environments or FIRE project, Hopkins et al. 2014) are providing new insight on why only a small fraction of the dark minihalos in orbit about the Galaxy are visible as dwarf galaxies (Wetzel…”
How to Measure Galaxy Star Formation Histories. II. Nonparametric Models (2018, methodology): “…bathtub model (e.g. Davé et al. 2011; Forbes et al. 2014) and cosmological hydrodynamical simulations (Crain et al. 2015; Schaye et al. 2015; Pillepich et al. 2018) or it is set by the timescales of star formation feedback as in the high-resolution FIRE simulations (Hopkins et al. 2014).”
The origin and evolution of the galaxy mass–metallicity relation (2015, methodology): “Most of them have been 1 FIRE project website: http://fire.northwestern.edu c© 0000 RAS, MNRAS 000, 1–15 presented in Hopkins et al. (2014).”
Size evolution of normal and compact galaxies in the EAGLE simulation (2015, background): “…reasonable galaxy sizes for disc galaxies in small galaxy samples or over specific mass ranges (Governato et al. 2004; Okamoto & Millis 2005; Sales et al. 2010; Brook et al. 2012b; McCarthy et al. 2012; Aumer et al. 2013; Munshi et al. 2013; Hopkins et al. 2014; Marinacci, Pakmor & Springel 2014).”
ON THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN STAR FORMATION AND FEEDBACK IN GALAXY FORMATION SIMULATIONS (2014, background): “For star formation to be 8 Note that the degree of fluctuations in star formation rate is sensitive to the choice of ∆tSF and can vary with stellar mass, as reported by Hopkins et al. (2014) (see also Feldmann et al. 2012).”
First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: the stellar mass content of groups and clusters of galaxies (2017, background): “…have mostly focused on individual haloes up to Milky-Way sized mass (e.g. Guedes et al. 2011; Stinson et al. 2013; Marinacci et al. 2014; Hopkins et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2015; Christensen et al. 2016; Grand et al. 2017; Agertz & Kravtsov 2016; Hopkins et al. 2017) or on large…”
Black holes on FIRE: stellar feedback limits early feeding of galactic nuclei (2017, methodology): “…on the scale of starforming regions directly following stellar population synthesis models, the FIRE simulations reproduce a variety of galaxy (Hopkins et al. 2014; Ma et al. 2016; Feldmann et al. 2017) and CGM (Faucher-Giguère et al. 2015, 2016; Muratov et al. 2015; Hafen et al. 2017)…”
Not so lumpy after all: modelling the depletion of dark matter subhaloes by Milky Way-like galaxies (2017, background): “Briefly, however, the baryonic simulations are part of the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE; Hopkins et al. 2014) project2.”
RECONCILING THE STELLAR AND NEBULAR SPECTRA OF HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXIES (2016, background): “…are the principal sources of feedback that ultimately control the galaxy formation process (e.g., Murray et al. 2005; Faucher-Giguère et al. 2013; Hopkins et al. 2014; Muratov et al. 2015), and they dominate the bolometric luminosity of rapidly forming galaxies, whether most of the luminosity…”
Sweating the small stuff: simulating dwarf galaxies, ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, and their own tiny satellites (2015, methodology): “The FIRE implementation has as few free parameters as possible, with star formation in the multiphase ISM naturally self-regulating.”
Fluctuating feedback-regulated escape fraction of ionizing radiation in low-mass, high-redshift galaxies (2017, background): “This burstiness has been seen in other numerical studies (e.g. Wise & Cen 2009; Kimm & Cen 2014; Hopkins et al. 2014; Shen et al. 2014), and is regulated by supernovae explosions that heat the gas or even eject it, and delay the formation of new dense, star-forming clumps.”
Supernova feedback in an inhomogeneous interstellar medium (2014, methodology): “Our proposed model is analogous to, but somewhat more accurate than, the sub-resolution model for SNe used in the FIRE (Feedback In Realistic Environments) cosmological simulation project (Hopkins et al. 2014).”