MaGICC discs: matching observed galaxy relationships over a wide stellar mass range

By C. Brook, G. Stinson, Bradley K Gibson, James Wadsley, Thomas P. Quinn. 2012

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We use the same physical model to simulate four galaxies that match the relation between stellar and total mass, over a mass range that includes the vast majority of disc galaxies. The resultant galaxies, part of the Making Galaxies in a Cosmological Context (MaGICC) programme, also match observed relations between luminosity, rotation velocity, size, colour, star formation rate, H I mass, baryonic mass and metallicity. Radiation energy feedback from massive stars and supernova energy balance the complex interplay between cooling gas, regulated star formation, large-scale outflows and recycling of gas in a manner which correctly scales with the mass of the galaxy. Outflows, driven by the expansion of shells and superbubbles of overlapping supernova explosions, also play a key role in simulating galaxies with exponential surface brightness profiles, flat rotation curves and dark matter cores. Our study implies that large-scale outflows are the primary driver of the dependence of disc galaxy properties on mass. We show that the degree of outflows invoked in our model is required to meet the constraints provided by observations of O VI absorption lines in the circumgalactic media of nearby galaxies.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/97edf97b0d071e913b96a4c74f0041ebdcfa3000

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Citations in the corpus

A fundamental problem in our understanding of low-mass galaxy evolution (2012, background): “We note that these often have serious problems in reproducing galaxy properties too (e.g. Guo et al. 2010; Scannapieco et al. 2012; Avila-Reese et al. 2011; but see also Brook et al. 2012) and in addition it is not clear how to extrapolate their findings to the overall galaxy population properties.”
NIHAO - XI. Formation of ultra-diffuse galaxies by outflows (2016, methodology): “Star formation and feedback follows the model used in the MaGICC simulations (Stinson et al. 2013), that for the first time reproduced several galaxy scaling relations over a wide mass range (Brook et al. 2012), adopting a threshold for star formation of nth>10.3cm−3.”
Idealized models for galactic disc formation and evolution in ‘realistic’ ΛCDM haloes (2012, background): “…common in real galaxies (de Vaucouleurs 1958) and also in simulations (Katz & Gunn 1991), although most simulations significantly overpredict the mass in the central bulge component [CS09, Scannapieco et al. 2010, but see Brook et al. 2012 for simulations of lower mass (nearly) bulge-less discs].”
A DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF THE BARYONIC MASS FUNCTION OF GALAXIES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE GALACTIC BARYON FRACTION (2012, background): “Lastly, the work of Guedes et al. (2011) has been extended to lower masses by Brook et al. (2012), who managed to produce a pair of dwarf galaxies (Mh ≈ 10 10.8M⊙), which obey the observed “baryonic Tully-Fisher” relation and are therefore expected to have the correct baryon-to-halo mass fractions.”
ON THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN STAR FORMATION AND FEEDBACK IN GALAXY FORMATION SIMULATIONS (2014, methodology): “…et al. 2008; Colín et al. 2010; Agertz et al. 2011; Avila-Reese et al. 2011; Guedes et al. 2011; Scannapieco et al. 2012; Hopkins et al. 2011; Brook et al. 2012; Stinson et al. 2013; Agertz et al. 2013; Ceverino et al. 2013; Roškar et al. 2013; Booth et al. 2013; Christensen et al. 2014).”
NIHAO project – I. Reproducing the inefficiency of galaxy formation across cosmic time with a large sample of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations (2015, background): “…it has been shown that high spatial resolution coupled to more realistic models for star formation and stellar feedback can solve these problems, resulting in spiral galaxies with realistic sizes and bulge fractions (Guedes et al. 2011; Brook et al. 2012; Aumer et al. 2013; Marinacci et al. 2014).”
Towards a more realistic population of bright spiral galaxies in cosmological simulations (2013, background): “We conclude that any kind of feedback process acting before the explosion of SNe with effects similar to those in our model is likely to achieve this effect (see also Stinson et al. 2013; Brook et al. 2012).”
Size evolution of normal and compact galaxies in the EAGLE simulation (2015, background): “This problem can be overcome by the inclusion of energetic feedback, which tends to expel the lowest angular momentum gas from the forming galaxy, while also regulating the stellar mass formed (e.g. Sales et al. 2010; Brook et al. 2011, 2012a).”
The Milky Way’s stellar disk (2013, background): “…‘radiative feedback’ or ‘early stellar feedback’ from massive stars before they explode as Supernovae seems to have been an important missing feedback ingredient and must be added in simulations to the well-established supernovae feedback (Nath & Silk 2009; Hopkins et al. 2012; Brook et al. 2012).”
TOWARD A COMPLETE ACCOUNTING OF ENERGY AND MOMENTUM FROM STELLAR FEEDBACK IN GALAXY FORMATION SIMULATIONS (2012, methodology): “Brook et al. (2012) and Stinson et al. (2012) discussed the importance of “early feedback” in their SPH galaxy formation simulations.”
Dynamics for galactic archaeology (2013, background): “One way of addressing these many uncertainties is to perform N-body plus hydrodynamical simulations of the formation and chemical evolution of a galaxy (e.g. Brook et al., 2012; Loebman et al., 2011).”
The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments (2014, background): “…realistic sizes and masses (e.g. Governato et al. 2004, 2010; Okamoto et al. 2005; Agertz et al. 2011; Guedes et al. 2011; McCarthy et al. 2012; Brook et al. 2012; Stinson et al. 2013; Munshi et al. 2013; Aumer et al. 2013; Hopkins et al. 2013; Vogelsberger et al. 2013, 2014b; Marinacci et al.…”
The unexpected diversity of dwarf galaxy rotation curves (2015, background): “This may be a problem for ‘baryon-induced’ core formation, since it has been argued that the potential well might be too deep7 in such systems for baryons to create a sizeable core (Brook et al. 2012).”
The dependence of dark matter profiles on the stellar-to-halo mass ratio: a prediction for cusps versus cores (2013, methodology): “Suffice to say that the fiducial simulations best match present observed galaxy properties (see also Brook et al. 2012).”
A mass-dependent density profile for dark matter haloes including the influence of galaxy formation (2014, unknown): “Unlike previous generations of simulations, there is no catastrophic overcooling, no loss of angular momentum (Brook et al. 2011, 2012a), and the rotation curves do not have an inner peak, meaning that the mass proﬁles are appropriate for comparing to real galaxies.”
MOMENTUM INJECTION BY SUPERNOVAE IN THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM (2014, methodology): “The method adopted in Stinson et al. (2006), widely used in subsequent studies (e.g., Guedes et al. 2011; Brook et al. 2012; Stinson et al. 2013), disables cooling for the merging time of McKee & Ostriker (1977), which exceeds the shell formation time by an order of magnitude.”
Radiative feedback and the low efficiency of galaxy formation in low-mass haloes at high redshift (2013, background): “Brook et al. (2012) and Stinson et al. (2012) have introduced the concept of early feedback.”
The size evolution of star-forming and quenched galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulation (2017, background): “…2012) or a particular mass and size selection (Wellons et al. 2015, 2016), or used a small number of zoomed-in halos (Joung et al. 2009; Oser et al. 2012; Brook et al. 2012), where only the evolution of individual systems can be probed, but not statistics of populations for different cosmic epochs.”