Dr Harley Katz

Abstract:

Our understanding of the process through which magnetic fields reached their observed strengths in present-day galaxies remains incomplete. One of the advocated solutions is a turbulent dynamo mechanism that rapidly amplifies weak magnetic field seeds to the order of ∼μG. However, simulating the turbulent dynamo is a very challenging computational task due to the demanding span of spatial scales and the complexity of the required numerical methods. In particular, turbulent velocity and magnetic fields are extremely sensitive to the spatial discretization of simulated domains. To explore how refinement schemes affect galactic turbulence and amplification of magnetic fields in cosmological simulations, we compare two refinement strategies. A traditional quasi-Lagrangian adaptive mesh refinement approach focusing spatial resolution on dense regions, and a new refinement method that resolves the entire galaxy with a high resolution quasi-uniform grid. Our new refinement strategy yields much faster magnetic energy amplification than the quasi-Lagrangian method, which is also significantly greater than the adiabatic compressional estimate indicating that the extra amplification is produced through stretching of magnetic field lines. Furthermore, with our new refinement the magnetic energy growth factor scales with resolution following ∝Δx−1/2max⁠, in much better agreement with small-scale turbulent box simulations. Finally, we find evidence suggesting most magnetic amplification in our simulated galaxies occurs in the warm phase of their interstellar medium, which has a better developed turbulent field with our new refinement strategy.

Abstract:

We investigate the formation of jellyfish galaxies using radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of gas-rich dwarf galaxies with a multiphase interstellar medium (ISM). We find that the ram-pressure-stripped (RPS) ISM is the dominant source of molecular clumps in the near wake within 10 kpc from the galactic plane, while in situ formation is the major channel for dense gas in the distant tail of the gas-rich galaxy. Only 20% of the molecular clumps in the near wake originate from the intracluster medium (ICM); however, the fraction reaches 50% in the clumps located at 80 kpc from the galactic center since the cooling time of the RPS gas tends to be short owing to the ISM–ICM mixing (≲10 Myr). The tail region exhibits a star formation rate of 0.001–0.01 M⊙ yr−1, and most of the tail stars are born in the stripped wake within 10 kpc from the galactic plane. These stars induce bright Hα blobs in the tail, while Hα tails fainter than 6 × 1038 erg s−1 kpc−2 are mostly formed via collisional radiation and heating due to mixing. We also find that the stripped tails have intermediate X-ray-to-Hα surface brightness ratios (1.5 ≲ FX/FHα ≲ 20), compared to the ISM (≲1.5) or pure ICM (≫20). Our results suggest that jellyfish features emerge when the ISM from gas-rich galaxies is stripped by strong ram pressure, mixes with the ICM, and enhances the cooling in the tail.