Simulations of binary galaxy mergers and the link with fast rotators, slow rotators, and kinematically distinct cores

By M. Bois, Eric Emsellem, Frédéric Bournaud, K. Alatalo, L. Blitz, M. Bureau, M. Cappellari, Roger Davies, T. Davis, P. de Zeeuw and 14 more. 2011

161 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the formation of early-type galaxies (ETGs) through mergers with a sample of 70 high-resolution numerical simulations of binary mergers of disc galaxies. These simulations encompass various mass ratios, initial conditions and orbital parameters. We find that binary mergers of disc galaxies with mass ratios of 3:1 and 6:1 are nearly always classified as Fast Rotators according to the ATLAS3D criterion: they preserve the structure of the input fast rotating spiral progenitors. Major disc mergers (mass ratios of 2:1 and 1:1) lead to both Fast and Slow Rotators. Most of the Slow Rotators hold a stellar Kinematically Distinct Core (KDC) in their 1-3 central kilo-parsec: these KDCs are built from the stellar components of the progenitors. The mass ratio of the progenitors is a fundamental parameter for the formation of Slow Rotators in binary mergers, but it also requires a retrograde spin for the progenitor galaxies with respect to the orbital angular momentum. The importance of the initial spin of the progenitors is also investigated in the library of galaxy mergers of the GalMer project.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5bf72dc9a8470090c431910ea01aa057f3c24eb0

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. M. Cappellari
2. T. Naab
3. M. Sarzi
4. Roger Davies
5. Eric Emsellem
6. M. Bureau
7. D. Krajnovi'c
8. P. de Zeeuw

In Instrumentation

1. M. Cappellari
2. M. Sarzi
3. M. Bureau
4. Eric Emsellem
5. T. Naab
6. D. Krajnovi'c
7. Roger Davies
8. P. de Zeeuw

Citations in the corpus

• Structure and Kinematics of Early-Type Galaxies from Integral Field Spectroscopy (2016, methodology): “…studies trying to specifically address the formation of the fast and slow rotator ETGs classes revealed by IFS observations were presented by Bois et al. (2011); Khochfar et al. (2011); Naab et al. (2014). www.annualreviews.org • Structure of early-type galaxies 51 Galaxy evolution on the…”
• The ATLAS3D Project – XXX. Star formation histories and stellar population scaling relations of early-type galaxies (2015, background): “…occur, depending on the orbital parameters of the interaction, the resulting system can remain as a ‘fast’ rotator, or in the case of misaligned spin vectors of the progenitors, give rise to a ‘two-sigma’ galaxy with a significant fraction of stars on counter-rotating orbits (Bois et al. 2011).”
• ANGULAR MOMENTUM AND GALAXY FORMATION REVISITED (2012, background): “Spirals would be 25 In more detail, the fast- and slow-rotator subcategories of ellipticals (Section 4.2) are often thought to originate in different merger histories, such as binary versus multiple mergers (e.g., Burkert et al. 2008; Bois et al. 2011).”