Star formation efficiency in galaxy interactions and mergers: a statistical study

By Paola Di Matteo, F. Combes, A. Melchior, B. Semelin. 2007

347 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We investigate the enhancement of star formation efficiency in galaxy interactions and mergers by numerical simulations of several hundred galaxy collisions. All morphological types along the Hubble sequence are considered in the initial conditions of the two colliding galaxies, with varying bulge-to-disk ratios and gas mass fractions. Different types of orbits are simulated, direct and retrograde, according to the initial relative energy and impact parameter, and the resulting star formation history is compared to that occuring in the two galaxies when they are isolated. Our principal results are (1) retrograde encounters have greater star formation efficiency (SFE) than direct encounters, (2) the amount of gas available in the galaxy is not the main parameter governing the SFE in the burst phase, (3) there is a negative correlation between the amplitude of the star forming burst and the tidal forces exerted per unit of time, which is due to the large amount of gas dragged outside the galaxy by tidal tails in strong interactions, (4) globally, the Kennicutt-Schmidt law is seen to apply statistically for isolated galaxies, interacting pairs and mergers, (5) enhanced star formation occurs essentially in nuclear starbursts, triggered by inward gas flows driven by non-axisymmetries in the galaxy disks. Direct encounters develop more pronounced asymmetries than retrograde ones. Based on these statistical results we derive general laws for the enhancement of star formation in galaxy interactions and mergers, as a function of the main parameters of the encounter.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/661bd9134d5104fb92a31174eef937a596848ce0

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Citations in the corpus

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Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – IX. Merger-induced AGN activity as traced by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (2014, background): “2006; Woods et al. 2006; Woods & Geller 2007; Di Matteo et al. 2007, 2008; Ellison et al. 2008; Cox et al. 2008; Smith & Struck 2010; Patton et al. 2011; Liu et al. 2012; Scudder et al. 2012; Patton et al. 2013), and the formation of spheroids (e.g., Toomre 1977; Lake & Dressler 1986; Shier &…”
THE SINS SURVEY OF z ∼ 2 GALAXY KINEMATICS: PROPERTIES OF THE GIANT STAR-FORMING CLUMPS (2010, background): “However, we cannot exclude the alternative possibility that the instability is driven by a large-scale compression, such as experienced in a galaxy interaction or (minor) merger (e.g., Di Matteo et al. 2007).”
THE IMPACT OF INTERACTIONS, BARS, BULGES, AND ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI ON STAR FORMATION EFFICIENCY IN LOCAL MASSIVE GALAXIES (2012, result): “This is consistent with previous findings that mergers cannot all be identically associated with episodes of active star formation (e.g. Di Matteo et al. 2007), either because some interactions may not drive gas inwards and compress it, or else because there is a delay between the occurrence of the…”
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CANDELS: CONSTRAINING THE AGN–MERGER CONNECTION WITH HOST MORPHOLOGIES AT z ∼ 2 (2011, background): “This includes the correlation between SMBH mass and bulge velocity dispersion (Di Matteo et al. 2007; Robertson et al. 2006), the quasar luminosity function (Hopkins et al. 2005, 2006b), and the luminosity function of post-quenched red galaxies (Hopkins et al. 2006a).”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – VI. The orbital extent of enhanced star formation in interacting galaxies (2013, background): “…with interaction-induced star formation seen in simulations of merging galaxies, with the closest pairs comprised of system seen near their first pericentre passage, as well as those which are coalescing (e.g., Mihos & Hernquist 1996; Di Matteo et al. 2007; Cox et al. 2008; Montuori et al. 2010).”
The star formation main sequence and stellar mass assembly of galaxies in the Illustris simulation (2014, background): “Also, the elevation depends sensitively on the mass ratio and orbital parameters of the merger (e.g. Di Matteo et al. 2007, 2008; Cox et al. 2008).”
Radial migration does little for Galactic disc thickening (2012, methodology): “For the majority of this paper we study three main runs of isolated disc galaxies from the GalMer database (Di Matteo et al., 2007): the giant S0, Sa, and Sbc runs (hereafter gS0, gSa, and gSb).”
HYDRODYNAMICS OF HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXY COLLISIONS: FROM GAS-RICH DISKS TO DISPERSION-DOMINATED MERGERS AND COMPACT SPHEROIDS (2010, result): “This factor is somewhat higher than the typical value in larger samples of merger simulations (e.g. Di Matteo et al. 2007, 2008; Martig & Bournaud 2008; Stewart et al. 2008) but not in large disagreement.”
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Simulations of binary galaxy mergers and the link with fast rotators, slow rotators, and kinematically distinct cores (2011, background): “…observed properties of ETGs (Naab & Burkert 2003; Bournaud, Combes & Jog 2004; Bournaud, Jog & Combes 2005; Naab, Jesseit & Burkert 2006a; Cox et al. 2006a, 2008; Rothberg & Joseph 2006; Di Matteo et al. 2007; Burkert et al. 2008; Jesseit et al. 2009; Hoffman et al. 2010; Chilingarian et al. 2010).”
Ionized gas outflows and global kinematics of low-z luminous star-forming galaxies (2014, result): “These results agree well with the scenario in which merger driven bursts of star formation are expected to be more vigorous during the final dynamical phases of the merger process (e.g., 18 Barnes & Hernquist 1991; Mihos & Hernsquist 1996; Genzel et al. 1998; Cox et al. 2006; di Matteo et al. 2007).”
Radial migration in galactic disks caused by resonance overlap of multiple patterns: Self-consistent simulations (2010, methodology): “We test the predictions of MF10 by analyzing fully selfconsistent simulations of isolated disk galaxies from the GalMer database1, including a gas component as well as star formation (Di Matteo et al., 2007; Chilingarian et al., 2010).”
Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – II. The effect of environment on interactions (2010, background): “Simulations also predict that the orintation and relative rotation directions can dramatically affect the efficiency of a starburst, much more so than simply the presenceof an adequate gas supply (Di Matteo et al. 2007; Cox et al. 2008).”
HISTORY OF GALAXY INTERACTIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON STAR FORMATION OVER THE LAST 7 Gyr FROM GEMS (2009, background): “…factor by which mergers enhance the SF activity of galaxies over the last 7 Gyr, since the star formation rate in simulations is highly sensitive to the stellar feedback model, the bulge-to-disk (B/D) ratio, the gas mass fractions, and orbital geometry (e.g., Cox et al 2006; di Matteo et al. 2007).”
REGULARITY UNDERLYING COMPLEXITY: A REDSHIFT-INDEPENDENT DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTINUOUS VARIATION OF GALAXY-SCALE MOLECULAR GAS PROPERTIES IN THE MASS-STAR FORMATION RATE PLANE (2013, neutral): “It is interesting to note that Di Matteo et al. (2007) find SFE enhancements in merger simulations that exceed the 19 As boosts between 4 and 10 have been inferred for our reference SBs, the pre-burst sSFRs of these galaxies are statistically expected to have been in the range 0.8–3…”
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