The formation and survival of discs in a ΛcDM universe

By C. Scannapieco, Simon D. M. White, Volker Springel, P. K. I. O. Astronomy, Space Physics - Buenos Aires. 2008

232 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the formation of galaxies in acold dark matter (� CDM) universe using high- resolution hydrodynamical simulations with a multiphase treatment of gas, cooling and feed- back, focusing on the formation of discs. Our simulations follow eight isolated haloes similar in mass to the Milky Way and extracted from a large cosmological simulation without restric- tion on spin parameter or merger history. This allows us to investigate how the final properties of the simulated galaxies correlate with the formation histories of their haloes. We find that, at z = 0, none of our galaxies contains a disc with more than 20 per cent of its total stellar mass. Four of the eight galaxies nevertheless have well-formed disc components, three have dominant spheroids and very small discs, and one is a spheroidal galaxy with no disc at all. The z = 0 spheroids are made of old stars, while discs are younger and formed from the inside-out. Neither the existence of a disc at z = 0 nor the final disc-to-total mass ratio seems to depend on the spin parameter of the halo. Discs are formed in haloes with spin parameters as low as 0.01 and as high as 0.05; galaxies with little or no disc component span the same range in spin parameter. Except for one of the simulated galaxies, all have significant discs at z 2, regardless of their z = 0 morphologies. Major mergers and instabilities which arise when accreting cold gas is misaligned with the stellar disc trigger a transfer of mass from the discs to the spheroids. In some cases, discs are destroyed, while in others, they survive or reform. This suggests that the survival probability of discs depends on the particular formation history of each galaxy. A realisticCDM model will clearly require weaker star formation at high redshift and later disc assembly than occurs in our models.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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Citations in the corpus

Yule-Simpson’s paradox in Galactic Archaeology (2019, methodology): “As a first illustration of the YSP, we consider a cosmological zoom-in hydrodynamical simulation, using initial conditions from one of the Aquarius Project haloes (Springel et al. 2008; Scannapieco et al. 2009) and a Tree-PM SPH code.”
Kinematics and history of the solar neighbourhood revisited (2009, background): “These values fall at the upper end of the times obtained by Scannapieco et al. (2009).”
Towards a more realistic population of bright spiral galaxies in cosmological simulations (2013, background): “…modeling the many baryonic astrophysical processes which play a role in the formation of galaxies has led to a long list of models over the last two decades (e.g. Navarro & White 1994; Navarro & Steinmetz 1997; Abadi et al. 2003; Governato et al. 2007; Scannapieco et al. 2009; Agertz et al. 2011).”
New constraints on the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood and galactic disc(s) - improved astrophysical parameters for the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (2011, background): “…internal (scattering, dynamical interaction or radial mixing, e.g., Schönrich & Binney 2009b; Loebman et al. 2010) or external (satellite accretion, mergers of gas-rich systems, minor mergers, e.g., Abadi et al. 2003; Brook et al. 2007; Villalobos & Helmi 2008; Scannapieco et al. 2009) mechanisms.”
A characteristic oxygen abundance gradient in galaxy disks unveiled with CALIFA (2013, background): “(Scannapieco et al. 2008, 2009), making it unlikely that the in situ star formation could have enriched the ISM to the presently observed values.”
Theoretical Challenges in Galaxy Formation (2016, background): “…partially succeeded to make disk systems that were as low mass and extended in space and time of formation as those in the real Universe (Abadi et al. 2003a,b; Agertz, Teyssier & Moore 2011; Governato et al. 2004; Piontek & Steinmetz 2011; Robertson et al. 2006a, 2004; Scannapieco et al. 2009).”
Formation of isolated dwarf galaxies with feedback (2009, methodology): “This model has previously been used to study the effect of feedback on galaxy evolution in general terms (Scannapieco et al. 2006) and the formation of disk galaxies in particular (Scannapieco et al. 2008, 2009).”
Dark matter response to galaxy formation (2009, methodology): “Properties of the galaxies in these haloes are studied in Scannapieco et al. (2009) and will be further analysed in a forthcoming paper.”
The evolution of massive black holes and their spins in their galactic hosts (2012, background): “…Taffoni 2007), or more ambitiously with hydrodynamical simulations (Springel & Hernquist 2003; Springel 2005; Di Matteo, Springel, & Hernquist 2005; Scannapieco et al. 2009; Dotti et al. 2007; Dotti, Colpi, & Haardt 2006; Dotti et al. 2009, 2010a; Maio et al. 2012; O’Shea et al. 2004; Kravtsov &…”
There's no place like home? Statistics of Milky Way-mass dark matter haloes (2009, background): “…gas content of the merging galaxies can have a substantial impact on remnant properties (Springel & Hernquist 2005; Kazantzidis et al. 2008, 2009; Scannapieco et al. 2009; Hopkins et al. 2009; Purcell et al. 2009; Stewart et al. 2009; Moster et al. 2010; Governato et al. 2009; D’Onghia et al.…”
The origin of discs and spheroids in simulated galaxies (2011, methodology): “This has been seen in earlier work (e.g. Brook et al. 2008; Scannapieco et al. 2009), and might be related to sudden changes in the orientation of the dark matter haloes as discussed in Bett & Frenk (2012).”
The influence of Sagittarius and the Large Magellanic Cloud on the stellar disc of the Milky Way Galaxy (2017, methodology): “Evolution of the circularity parameter εv = jz/rvc(r), as defined by Scannapieco et al. 2009.”
THE TWO PHASES OF GALAXY FORMATION (2010, background): “Compared to some other recent cosmological zoom simulations (Scannapieco et al. 2009; Governato et al. 2009; Piontek & Steinmetz 2009; Feldmann et al. 2010) the resolution level of our simulations at Mhalo ≈ 1012M⊙ is slightly lower.”
The properties of satellite galaxies in simulations of galaxy formation (2009, methodology): “As recently stressed by Scannapieco et al. (2009), the origin of galaxy morphology is more complicated than we generally thought and the star formation history is only a very crude indicator of the final morphology.”
Constraining the Milky Way assembly history with Galactic Archaeology (2016, methodology): “Other sources of disc flaring include misaligned gas infall (Scannapieco et al., 2009) and reorientation of the disc rotation axis (Aumer & White, 2013).”
ON THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN STAR FORMATION AND FEEDBACK IN GALAXY FORMATION SIMULATIONS (2014, background): “…galaxies have traditionally displayed high central concentrations of baryons, leading to strongly peaked circular velocities towards the galactic center (Navarro & White 1993; Abadi et al. 2003; Okamoto et al. 2005; Scannapieco et al. 2009; Piontek & Steinmetz 2009; Hummels & Bryan 2012).”
The formation of disc galaxies in a ΛCDM universe (2010, methodology): “Note that ǫff ≈ 2c∗, where c∗ is the efficiency parameter used in e.g. Governato et al. (2007) and Scannapieco et al. (2009) (defined via tdyn = 1/ √ 4πGρ).”
Idealized models for galactic disc formation and evolution in ‘realistic’ ΛCDM haloes (2012, background): “Even if extended discs form, they are often destroyed by infalling satellites (Toth & Ostriker 1992) or the accretion of misaligned gas (Scannapieco et al. 2009; Sales et al. 2011).”
How do galaxies populate dark matter haloes (2009, background): “5, most recent simulations of the formation of galaxies of Milky Way mass convert 25% – 60% of the available baryons into stars (Scannapieco et al. 2009; Governato et al. 2007; Okamoto et al. 2005).”
Measuring the vertical age structure of the Galactic disc using asteroseismology and SAGA (2015, background): “…mechanism (in particular accretion and/or mergers) best fit the picture in which the thin and the thick disc are real separated entities (e.g. Chiappini, Matteucci & Gratton 1997; Abadi et al. 2003; Brook et al. 2004; Kazantzidis et al. 2008; Villalobos & Helmi 2008; Scannapieco et al. 2009).”