No Arabic abstract
Associations of dwarf galaxies are loose systems composed exclusively of dwarf galaxies. These systems were identified in the Local Volume for the first time more than thirty years ago. We study these systems in the cosmological framework of the $Lambda$ Cold Dark Matter ($Lambda$CDM) model. We consider the Small MultiDark Planck simulation and populate its dark matter haloes by applying the semi-analytic model of galaxy formation SAG. We identify galaxy systems using a friends of friends algorithm with a linking length equal to $b=0.4 ,{rm Mpc},h^{-1}$, to reproduce the size of dwarf galaxy associations detected in the Local Volume. Our samples of dwarf systems are built up removing those systems that have one (or more) galaxies with stellar mass larger than a maximum threshold $M_{rm max}$. We analyse three different samples defined by ${rm log}_{10}(M_{rm max}[{rm M}_{odot},h^{-1}]) = 8.5, 9.0$ and $9.5$. On average, our systems have typical sizes of $sim 0.2,{rm Mpc},h^{-1}$, velocity dispersion of $sim 30 {rm km,s^{-1}} $ and estimated total mass of $sim 10^{11} {rm M}_{odot},h^{-1}$. Such large typical sizes suggest that individual members of a given dwarf association reside in different dark matter haloes and are generally not substructures of any other halo. Indeed, in more than 90 per cent of our dwarf systems their individual members inhabit different dark matter haloes, while only in the remaining 10 per cent members do reside in the same halo. Our results indicate that the $Lambda$CDM model can naturally reproduce the existence and properties of dwarf galaxies associations without much difficulty.
Understanding the formation and evolution of early-type, spheroid-dominated galaxies is an open question within the context of the hierarchical clustering scenario, particularly, in low-density environments. Our goal is to study the main structural, dynamical, and stellar population properties and assembly histories of field spheroid-dominated galaxies formed in a LCDM scenario to assess to what extend they are consistent with observations. We selected spheroid-dominated systems from a LCDM simulation that includes star formation, chemical evolution and Supernova feedback. A sample of 18 field systems with Mstar <= 6x10^10 Msun that are dominated by the spheroid component. For this sample we estimate the fundamental relations of ellipticals and then compared with current observations. The simulated spheroid galaxies have sizes in good agreement with observations. The bulges follow a Sersic law with Sersic indexes that correlate with the bulge-to-total mass ratios. The structural-dynamical properties of the simulated galaxies are consistent with observed Faber-Jackson, Fundamental Plane, and Tully-Fisher relations. However, the simulated galaxies are bluer and with higher star formation rates than observed isolated early-type galaxies. The archaeological mass growth histories show a slightly delayed formation and more prominent inside-out growth mode than observational inferences based on the fossil record method. The main structural and dynamical properties of the simulated spheroid-dominated galaxies are consistent with observations. This is remarkable since none of them has been tuned to be reproduced. However, the simulated galaxies are blue and star-forming, and with later stellar mass growth histories as compared to observational inferences. This is mainly due to the persistence of extended discs in the simulations. Abridged
The standard disc formation scenario postulates that disc forms as the gas cools and flows into the centre of the dark matter halo, conserving the specific angular momentum. Major mergers have been shown to be able to destroy or highly perturb the disc components. More recently, the alignment of the material that is accreted to form the galaxy has been pointed out as a key ingredient to determine galaxy morphology. However, in a hierarchical scenario galaxy formation is a complex process that combines these processes and others in a non-linear way so that the origin of galaxy morphology remains to be fully understood. We aim at exploring the differences in the formation histories of galaxies with a variety of morphology, but quite recent merger histories, to identify which mechanisms are playing a major role. We analyse when minor mergers can be considered relevant to determine galaxy morphology. We also study the specific angular momentum content of the disc and central spheroidal components separately. We used cosmological hydrodynamical simulations that include an effective, physically motivated supernova feedback that is able to regulate the star formation in haloes of different masses. We analysed the morphology and formation history of a sample of 15 galaxies of a cosmological simulation. We performed a spheroid-disc decomposition of the selected galaxies and their progenitor systems. The angular momentum orientation of the merging systems as well as their relative masses were estimated to analyse the role played by orientation and by minor mergers in the determination of the morphology. We found the discs to be formed by conserving the specific angular momentum in accordance with the classical disc formation model. The specific angular momentum of the stellar central spheroid correlates with the dark matter halo angular momentum and determines a power law. Abridged
We study the radial acceleration relation (RAR) between the total ($a_{rm tot}$) and baryonic ($a_{rm bary}$) centripetal acceleration profiles of central galaxies in the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm. We analytically show that the RAR is intimately connected with the physics of the quasi-adiabatic relaxation of dark matter in the presence of baryons in deep potential wells. This cleanly demonstrates how the mean RAR and its scatter emerge in the low-acceleration regime ($10^{-12},{rm m,s}^{-2}lesssim a_{rm bary}lesssim10^{-10},{rm m,s}^{-2}$) from an interplay between baryonic feedback processes and the distribution of CDM in dark halos. Our framework allows us to go further and study both higher and lower accelerations in detail, using analytical approximations and a realistic mock catalog of $sim342,000$ low-redshift central galaxies with $M_rleq-19$. We show that, while the RAR in the baryon-dominated, high-acceleration regime ($a_{rm bary}gtrsim10^{-10},{rm m,s}^{-2}$) is very sensitive to details of the relaxation physics, a simple `baryonification prescription matching the relaxation results of hydrodynamical CDM simulations is remarkably successful in reproducing the observed RAR without any tuning. And in the (currently unobserved) ultra-low-acceleration regime ($a_{rm bary}lesssim 10^{-12},{rm m,s}^{-2}$), the RAR is sensitive to the abundance of diffuse gas in the halo outskirts, with our default model predicting a distinctive break from a simple power-law-like relation for HI-deficient, diffuse gas-rich centrals. Our mocks also show that the RAR provides more robust, testable predictions of the $Lambda$CDM paradigm at galactic scales, with implications for alternative gravity theories, than the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation.
We model the distribution of the observed profiles of 21 cm line emission from neutral hydrogen (HI) in central galaxies selected from a statistically representative mock catalog of the local Universe in the Lambda-cold dark matter framework. The distribution of these HI velocity profiles (specifically, their widths $W_{50}$) has been observationally constrained, but has not been systematically studied theoretically. Our model profiles derive from rotation curves of realistically baryonified haloes in an N-body simulation, including the quasi-adiabatic relaxation of the dark matter profile of each halo in response to its baryons. We study the predicted $W_{50}$ distribution using a realistic pipeline applied to noisy profiles extracted from our luminosity-complete mock catalog with an ALFALFA-like survey geometry and redshift selection. Our default mock is in good agreement with observed ALFALFA results for $W_{50}gtrsim700$ km/s, being incomplete at lower widths due to the intrinsic threshold of $M_rleq-19$. Variations around the default model show that the velocity width function at $W_{50}gtrsim300$ km/s is most sensitive to a possible correlation between galaxy inclination and host concentration, followed by the physics of quasi-adiabatic relaxation. We also study the excess kurtosis of noiseless velocity profiles, obtaining a distribution which tightly correlates with $W_{50}$, with a shape and scatter that depend on the properties of the turbulent HI disk. Our results open the door towards using the shapes of HI velocity profiles as a novel statistical probe of the baryon-dark matter connection.
The leading tensions to the collisionless cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm are the small-scale controversies, discrepancies between observations at the dwarf-galactic scale and their simulational counterparts. In this work we consider methods to infer 3D morphological information on Local Group dwarf spheroidals, and test the fitness of CDM+hydrodynamics simulations to the observed galaxy shapes. We find that the subpopulation of dwarf galaxies with mass-to-light ratio $gtrsim 100 M_odot/L_odot$ reflects an oblate morphology. This is discrepant with the dwarf galaxies with mass-to-light ratio $lesssim 100 M_odot/L_odot$, which reflect prolate morphologies, and more importantly with simulations of CDM-sourced galaxies which are explicitly prolate. Although more simulations and data are called for, if evidence of oblate pressure-supported stellar distributions persists, we argue that an underlying oblate non-CDM dark matter halo may be required, and present this as motivation for future studies.