The hierarchical origin of galaxy morphologies

By Matthias Steinmetz, J. Navarro. 2002

205 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract We report first results from a series of N-body/gasdynamical simulations designed to study the origin of galaxy morphologies in a cold dark matter-dominated universe. The simulations include star formation and feedback and have numerical resolution sufficiently high to allow for a direct investigation of the morphology of simulated galaxies. We find, in agreement with previous theoretical work, that the presence of the main morphological components of galaxies—disks, spheroids, bars—is regulated by the mode of gas accretion and intimately linked to discrete accretion events. In the case we present, disks arise from the smooth deposition of cooled gas at the center of dark halos, spheroids result from the stirring of preexisting disks during mergers, and bars are triggered by tides generated by satellites. This demonstrates that morphology is a transient phenomenon within the lifetime of a galaxy and that the Hubble sequence reflects the varied accretion histories of galaxies in hierarchical formation scenarios. In particular, we demonstrate directly that disk/bulge systems can be built and rebuilt by the smooth accretion of gas onto the remnant of a major merger and that the present-day remnants of late dissipative mergers between disks are spheroidal stellar systems with structure resembling that of field ellipticals. The perplexing variety of galaxy morphologies is thus highly suggestive of—and may actually even demand—a universe where structures have evolved hierarchically.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bcfd9404b8fcfb43e0e00b8a5e21d710632ce66b

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Citations in the corpus

The morgana model for the rise of galaxies and active nuclei (2006, background): “…simulations aimed at resolving galaxies (see e.g. Pearce et al. 2001; Lia, Portinari & Carraro 2002; Mathis et al. 2002; Recchi et al. 2002; Steinmetz & Navarro 2002; Toft et al. 2002; Weinberg, Hernquist & Katz 2002; Springel & Hernquist 2003; Tornatore et al. 2003; Governato et al.…”
SHORT-LIVED STAR-FORMING GIANT CLUMPS IN COSMOLOGICAL SIMULATIONS OF z ≈ 2 DISKS (2010, background): “It has been suggested in the recent literature that the migration of giant clumps to the centers of high-redshift galaxies may serve as an avenue for the formation of galaxy bulges, in addition to the more traditional avenue of galaxy mergers (e.g. Steinmetz & Navarro 2002).”
GEMS: Galaxy Evolution from Morphologies and SEDs (2004, background): “Neither direct numerical simulations (e.g. Katz & Gunn 1991; Steinmetz & Navarro 2002; Springel, Yoshida, & White 2001), nor semi-analytic models (e.g. Cole et al. 2000; Kauffmann, White, & Guiderdoni 1993; Somerville & Primack 1999) can currently capture all important aspects of the problem.”
STRUCTURE AND FORMATION OF ELLIPTICAL AND SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES (2008, background): “Ellipticals form in violent galaxy mergers that often include gas dissipation and star formation (Toomre 1977; White & Rees 1978; Joseph & Wright 1985; Schweizer 1989; Kauffmann et al. 1993; Steinmetz & Navarro 2002).”
BULGE n AND B/T IN HIGH-MASS GALAXIES: CONSTRAINTS ON THE ORIGIN OF BULGES IN HIERARCHICAL MODELS (2008, background): “Meanwhile, gas aggregated in the interiors of the halos to form rotating disks, which are the building blocks of galaxies (Steinmetz & Navarro 2002; Cole et al. 2000).”
On the nature of bulges in general and of box/peanut bulges in particular: input from N-body simulations (2005, methodology): “In the simulation of Steinmetz & Navarro (2002) a disc is formed which at z ∼ 3.3 merges with another galaxy of a similar size.”
Cosmic ray driven outflows in global galaxy disc models (2013, background): “Generally, simulations have predicted much higher baryon fractions, producing an offset in the Tully–Fisher relation (e.g. Steinmetz & Navarro 2002), although very strong feedback appears to be capable of solving this issue (e.g. Brook et al. 2012).”
GEMS: The Surface Brightness and Surface Mass Density Evolution of Disk Galaxies (2005, background): “Furthermore, very few ‘‘late-type’’ disks are formed in such simulations; galaxies tend to suffermergers that thicken and destroy their disks (Steinmetz & Navarro 2002).”
The Broadband Optical Properties of Galaxies with Redshifts 0.02 < z < 0.22 (2002, unknown): “Our purpose is to measure properties related to quantities that cosmological gasdynamical simulations (Nagamine et al. 2001; Pearce et al. 2001; Steinmetz & Navarro 2002) or semianalytic models (Somerville et al. 2001; Mathis et al. 2002) can predict or will soon be able to predict, such as galaxy…”
The RAVE Survey: Constraining the Local Galactic Escape Speed (2006, methodology): “These galaxies have been introduced in earlier papers and we advise interested readers to consult the following references for details regarding the code and the numerical set-up: Steinmetz & Navarro (2002), Abadi et al. (2003a,b), Meza et al. (2003, 2005).”
Galaxy mergers with various mass ratios: properties of remnants (2005, background): “Since this mass-range is likely to be more common than the equal-mass mergers, especially at high redshifts as shown in the hierarchical merging models (e.g., Steinmetz & Navarro 2002), we expect that a large fraction of galaxies at high redshifts should be such peculiar systems.”
From Rings to Bulges: Evidence for Rapid Secular Galaxy Evolution at z ~ 2 from Integral Field Spectroscopy in the SINS Survey (2008, methodology): “Are they the result of major dissipative mergers, as motivated by the CDM merger paradigm and many recent simulations (e.g., Steinmetz & Navarro 2002)?”
VLT/UVES Abundances in Four Nearby Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies. II. Implications for Understanding Galaxy Evolution (2002, background): “…prediction that galactic disks and halos (such as our own) have relatively recently experienced significant accretions of smaller galaxies (e.g., Steinmetz & Navarro 2002; Kauffmann, White, & Guiderdoni 1993), and those approaches that, independent of assumptions from CDM, utilize observations…”
The Morphological Diversities among Star-forming Galaxies at High Redshifts in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (2006, background): “This may reflect a transformation among the galaxy types, as the spheroids accrete gas and rebuild disks around them (Steinmetz & Navarro, 2002).”
The Assembly of Diversity in the Morphologies and Stellar Populations of High-Redshift Galaxies (2005, background): “This process is expected to form star-forming disks around spheroids produced in merger remnants and create spiral galaxies, which broadly reproduces the observed distribution of colors, gradients, and masses in z 2 3 galaxies (Contardo et al. 1998; Steinmetz & Navarro 2002).”