No Arabic abstract
Using chemical hydrodynamical simulations consistent with a Lambda-CDM model, we study the role played by mergers and interactions in the regulation of the star formation activity, colours and the chemical properties of galaxies in pairs. A statistical analysis of the orbital parameters in galaxy pairs (r <100 kpc/h) shows that the star formation (SF) activity correlates strongly with the relative separation and weakly with the relative velocity, indicating that close encounters (r <30 kpc/h) can increase the SF activity to levels higher than that exhibit in galaxies without a close companion. Analysing the internal properties of interacting systems, we find that their stability properties also play a role in the regulation the SF activity (Perez et al 2005a). Particularly, we find that the passive star forming galaxies in pairs are statistically more stable with deeper potential wells and less leftover gas than active star forming pairs. In order to compare our results with observations, we also build a projected catalog of galaxy pairs (2D-GP: rp <100 kpc/h and Vr <350 km/s), constructed by projecting the 3D sample in different random directions. In good agreement with observations (Lambas et al 2003), our results indicate that galaxies with rp < 25 kpc/h (close pairs) show an enhancement of the SF activity with respect to galaxies without a close companion. (Abridged.)
We perform an statistical analysis of galaxies in pairs in a Lambda-CDM scenario by using the chemical GADGET-2 of Scannapieco et al. (2005) in order to study the effects of galaxy interactions on colours and metallicities. We find that galaxy-galaxy interactions can produce a bimodal colour distribution with galaxies with significant recent star formation activity contributing mainly to blue colours. In the simulations, the colours and the fractions of recently formed stars of galaxies in pairs depend on environment more strongly than those of galaxies without a close companion, suggesting that interactions play an important role in galaxy evolution. If the metallicity of the stellar populations is used as the chemical indicator, we find that the simulated galaxies determine luminosity-metallicity and stellar mass-metallicity relations which do not depend on the presence of a close companion. However, in the case of the luminosity-metallicity relation, at a given level of enrichment, we detect a systematic displacement of the relation to brighter magnitudes for active star forming systems. Regardless of relative distance and current level of star formation activity, galaxies in pairs have stellar populations with higher level of enrichment than galaxies without a close companion. In the case of the gas component, this is no longer valid for galaxies in pairs with passive star formation which only show an excess of metals for very close pair members, consequence of an important recent past star formation activity. (Abridged).
We present cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters aimed at studying the process of metal enrichment of the intra--cluster medium (ICM). These simulations have been performed by implementing a detailed model of chemical evolution in the Tree-SPH gd code. This model allows us to follow the metal release from SNII, SNIa and AGB stars, by properly accounting for the lifetimes of stars of different mass, as well as to change the stellar initial mass function (IMF), the lifetime function and the stellar yields. As such, our implementation of chemical evolution represents a powerful instrument to follow the cosmic history of metal production. The simulations presented here have been performed with the twofold aim of checking numerical effects, as well as the impact of changing the model of chemical evolution and the efficiency of stellar feedback.
The evolution of the metal content of galaxies and its relations to other global properties [such as total stellar mass (M*), circular velocity, star formation rate (SFR), halo mass, etc.] provides important constraints on models of galaxy formation. Here we examine the evolution of metallicity scaling relations of simulated galaxies in the Galaxies-Intergalactic Medium Interaction Calculation suite of cosmological simulations. We make comparisons to observations of the correlation of gas-phase abundances with M* (the mass-metallicity relation, MZR), as well as with both M* and SFR or gas mass fraction (the so-called 3D fundamental metallicity relations, FMRs). The simulated galaxies follow the observed local MZR and FMRs over an order of magnitude in M*, but overpredict the metallicity of massive galaxies (log M* > 10.5), plausibly due to inefficient feedback in this regime. We discuss the origin of the MZR and FMRs in the context of galactic outflows and gas accretion. We examine the evolution of mass-metallicity relations defined using different elements that probe the three enrichment channels (SNII, SNIa, and AGB stars). Relations based on elements produced mainly by SNII evolve weakly, whereas those based on elements produced preferentially in SNIa/AGB exhibit stronger evolution, due to the longer timescales associated with these channels. Finally, we compare the relations of central and satellite galaxies, finding systematically higher metallicities for satellites, as observed. We show this is due to the removal of the metal poor gas reservoir that normally surrounds galaxies and acts to dilute their gas-phase metallicity (via cooling/accretion onto the disk), but is lost due to ram pressure stripping for satellites.
It is well known that cosmic rays (CRs) contribute significantly to the pressure of the interstellar medium in our own Galaxy, suggesting that they may play an important role in regulating star formation during the formation and evolution of galaxies. We will present a novel numerical treatment of the physics of CRs and its implementation in the parallel smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code GADGET-2. In our methodology, the non-thermal CR population is treated self-consistently in order to assess its dynamical impact on the thermal gas as well as other implications on cosmological observables. In simulations of galaxy formation, we find that CRs can significantly reduce the star formation efficiencies of small galaxies. This effect becomes progressively stronger towards low mass scales. In cosmological simulations of the formation of dwarf galaxies at high redshift, we find that the total mass-to-light ratio of small halos and the faint-end of the luminosity function are affected. In high resolution simulations of galaxy clusters, we find lower contributions of CR pressure, due to the smaller CR injection efficiencies at low Mach number flow shocks inside halos, and the softer adiabatic index of CRs, which disfavours them when a composite of thermal gas and CRs is adiabatically compressed. Within cool core regions, the CR pressure reaches equipartition with the thermal pressure leading to an enhanced compressibility of the central intra-cluster medium, an effect that increases the central density and pressure of the gas. While the X-ray luminosity in low mass cool core clusters is boosted, the integrated Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect is only slightly changed. The resolved Sunyaev-Zeldovich maps, however, show a larger variation with an increased central flux decrement.
It is now possible for hydrodynamical simulations to reproduce a representative galaxy population. Accordingly, it is timely to assess critically some of the assumptions of traditional semi-analytic galaxy formation models. We use the Eagle simulations to assess assumptions built into the Galform semi-analytic model, focussing on those relating to baryon cycling, angular momentum and feedback. We show that the assumption in Galform that newly formed stars have the same specific angular momentum as the total disc leads to a significant overestimate of the total stellar specific angular momentum of disc galaxies. In Eagle, stars form preferentially out of low specific angular momentum gas in the interstellar medium (ISM) due to the assumed gas density threshold for stars to form, leading to more realistic galaxy sizes. We find that stellar mass assembly is similar between Galform and Eagle but that the evolution of gas properties is different, with various indications that the rate of baryon cycling in Eagle is slower than is assumed in Galform. Finally, by matching individual galaxies between Eagle and Galform, we find that an artificial dependence of AGN feedback and gas infall rates on halo mass doubling events in Galform drives most of the scatter in stellar mass between individual objects. Put together our results suggest that the Galform semi-analytic model can be significantly improved in light of recent advances.