No Arabic abstract
In this study we demonstrate that stellar masses of galaxies (Mstar) are universally correlated through a double power law function with the product of the dynamical velocities (Ve) and sizes to one-fourth power (Re^0.25) of galaxies, both measured at the effective radii. The product VeRe^0.25 represents the fourth root of the total binding energies within effective radii of galaxies. This stellar mass-binding energy correlation has an observed scatter of 0.14 dex in log(VeRe^0.25) and 0.46 dex in log(Mstar). It holds for a variety of galaxy types over a stellar mass range of nine orders of magnitude, with little evolution over cosmic time. A toy model of self-regulation between binding energies and supernovae feedback is shown to be able to reproduce the observed slopes, but the underlying physical mechanisms are still unclear. The correlation can be a potential distance estimator with an uncertainty of 0.2 dex independent of the galaxy type.
We derive the stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR), namely $f_starpropto M_star/M_{rm h}$ versus $M_star$ and $M_{rm h}$, for early-type galaxies from their near-IR luminosities (for $M_star$) and the position-velocity distributions of their globular cluster systems (for $M_{rm h}$). Our individual estimates of $M_{rm h}$ are based on fitting a dynamical model with a distribution function expressed in terms of action-angle variables and imposing a prior on $M_{rm h}$ from the concentration-mass relation in the standard $Lambda$CDM cosmology. We find that the SHMR for early-type galaxies declines with mass beyond a peak at $M_starsim 5times 10^{10}M_odot$ and $M_{rm h}sim 10^{12}M_odot$ (near the mass of the Milky Way). This result is consistent with the standard SHMR derived by abundance matching for the general population of galaxies, and with previous, less robust derivations of the SHMR for early types. However, it contrasts sharply with the monotonically rising SHMR for late types derived from extended HI rotation curves and the same $Lambda$CDM prior on $M_{rm h}$ as we adopt for early types. The SHMR for massive galaxies varies more or less continuously, from rising to falling, with decreasing disc fraction and decreasing Hubble type. We also show that the different SHMRs for late and early types are consistent with the similar scaling relations between their stellar velocities and masses (Tully-Fisher and Faber-Jackson relations). Differences in the relations between the stellar and halo virial velocities account for the similarity of the scaling relations. We argue that all these empirical findings are natural consequences of a picture in which galactic discs are built mainly by smooth and gradual inflow, regulated by feedback from young stars, while galactic spheroids are built by a cooperation between merging, black-hole fuelling, and feedback from AGNs.
For many massive compact galaxies, their dynamical masses ($M_mathrm{dyn} propto sigma^2 r_mathrm{e}$) are lower than their stellar masses ($M_star$). We analyse the unphysical mass discrepancy $M_star / M_mathrm{dyn} > 1$ on a stellar-mass-selected sample of early-type galaxies ($M_star gtrsim 10^{11} mathrm{M_odot}$) at redshifts $z sim 0.2$ to $z sim 1.1$. We build stacked spectra for bins of redshift, size and stellar mass, obtain velocity dispersions, and infer dynamical masses using the virial relation $M_mathrm{dyn} equiv K sigma_mathrm{e}^2 r_mathrm{e} / G$ with $K = 5.0$; this assumes homology between our galaxies and nearby massive ellipticals. Our sample is completed using literature data, including individual objects up to $z sim 2.5$ and a large local reference sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that, at all redshifts, the discrepancy between $M_star$ and $M_mathrm{dyn}$ grows as galaxies depart from the present-day relation between stellar mass and size: the more compact a galaxy, the larger its $M_star / M_mathrm{dyn}$. Current uncertainties in stellar masses cannot account for values of $M_star / M_mathrm{dyn}$ above 1. Our results suggest that the homology hypothesis contained in the $M_mathrm{dyn}$ formula above breaks down for compact galaxies. We provide an approximation to the virial coefficient $K sim 6.0 left[ r_mathrm{e} / (3.185 mathrm{kpc}) right]^{-0.81} left[ M_star / (10^{11} mathrm{M_odot}) right]^{0.45}$, which solves the mass discrepancy problem. A rough approximation to the dynamical mass is given by $M_mathrm{dyn} sim left[ sigma_mathrm{e} / (200 mathrm{km s^{-1}}) right]^{3.6} left[ r_mathrm{e} / (3 mathrm{kpc}) right]^{0.35} 2.1 times 10^{11} mathrm{M_odot}$.
We explore the origin of stellar metallicity gradients in simulated and observed dwarf galaxies. We use FIRE-2 cosmological baryonic zoom-in simulations of 26 isolated galaxies as well as existing observational data for 10 Local Group dwarf galaxies. Our simulated galaxies have stellar masses between $10^{5.5}$ and $10^{8.6} msun$. Whilst gas-phase metallicty gradients are generally weak in our simulated galaxies, we find that stellar metallicity gradients are common, with central regions tending to be more metal-rich than the outer parts. The strength of the gradient is correlated with galaxy-wide median stellar age, such that galaxies with younger stellar populations have flatter gradients. Stellar metallicty gradients are set by two competing processes: (1) the steady puffing of old, metal-poor stars by feedback-driven potential fluctuations, and (2) the accretion of extended, metal-rich gas at late times, which fuels late-time metal-rich star formation. If recent star formation dominates, then extended, metal-rich star formation washes out pre-existing gradients from the puffing process. We use published results from ten Local Group dwarf galaxies to show that a similar relationship between age and stellar metallicity-gradient strength exists among real dwarfs. This suggests that observed stellar metallicity gradients may be driven largely by the baryon/feedback cycle rather than by external environmental effects.
We present the results of a study to determine the co-evolution of the virial and stellar masses for a sample of 83 disk galaxies between redshifts z = 0.2 - 1.2. The virial masses of these disks are computed using measured maximum rotational velocities from Keck spectroscopy and scale lengths from Hubble Space Telescope imaging. We compute stellar masses based on stellar population synthesis model fits to spectral energy distributions including K-band magnitudes. We find no apparent evolution with redshift from z = 0.2 - 1.2 in the relationship between stellar masses and maximum rotational velocities through the stellar mass Tully-Fisher relationship. We also find no evolution when comparing disk stellar and virial masses. Massive disk galaxies therefore appear to be already in place, in terms of their virial and stellar masses, out to the highest redshifts where they can be morphologically identified.
A significant fraction of high redshift star-forming disc galaxies are known to host giant clumps, whose nature and role in galaxy evolution are yet to be understood. In this work we first present a new method based on neural networks to detect clumps in galaxy images. We use this method to detect clumps in the rest-frame optical and UV images of a complete sample of $sim1500$ star forming galaxies at $1<z<3$ in the CANDELS survey as well as in images from the VELA zoom-in cosmological simulations. We show that observational effects have a dramatic impact on the derived clump properties leading to an overestimation of the clump mass up to a factor of 10, which highlights the importance of fair comparisons between observations and simulations and the limitations of current HST data to study the resolved structure of distant galaxies. After correcting for these effects with a mixture density network, we estimate that the clump stellar mass function follows a power-law down to the completeness limit ($10^{7}$ solar masses) with the majority of the clumps being less massive than $10^9$ solar masses. This is in better agreement with recent gravitational lensing based measurements. The simulations explored in this work overall reproduce the shape of the observed clump stellar mass function and clumpy fractions when confronted under the same conditions, although they tend to lie in the lower limit of the confidence intervals of the observations. This agreement suggests that most of the observed clumps are formed in-situ.