Beecroft Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

Abstract:

In our hierarchical structure-formation paradigm, the observed morphological evolution of massive galaxies – from rotationally supported discs to dispersion-dominated spheroids – is largely explained via galaxy merging. However, since mergers are likely to destroy discs, and the most massive galaxies have the richest merger histories, it is surprising that any discs exist at all at the highest stellar masses. Recent theoretical work by our group has used a cosmological, hydrodynamical simulation to suggest that extremely massive (M* > 1011.4 M⊙) discs form primarily via minor mergers between spheroids and gas-rich satellites, which create new rotational stellar components and leave discs as remnants. Here, we use UV-optical and H I data of massive galaxies, from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Galaxy Evolution Explorer, Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS), and Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA surveys, to test these theoretical predictions. Observed massive discs account for ∼13 per cent of massive galaxies, in good agreement with theory (∼11 per cent). ∼64 per cent of the observed massive discs exhibit tidal features, which are likely to indicate recent minor mergers, in the deep DECaLS images (compared to ∼60 per cent in their simulated counterparts). The incidence of these features is at least four times higher than in low-mass discs, suggesting that, as predicted, minor mergers play a significant (and outsized) role in the formation of these systems. The empirical star formation rates agree well with theoretical predictions and, for a small galaxy sample with H I detections, the H I masses and fractions are consistent with the range predicted by the simulation. The good agreement between theory and observations indicates that extremely massive discs are indeed remnants of recent minor mergers between spheroids and gas-rich satellites.

Abstract:

ABSTRACT We introduce and apply a new approach to probe the response of galactic stellar haloes to the interplay between cosmological merger histories and galaxy formation physics. We perform dark matter-only, zoomed simulations of two Milky Way-mass hosts and make targeted, controlled changes to their cosmological histories using the genetic modification technique. Populating each history’s stellar halo with a semi-empirical, particle tagging approach then enables a controlled study, with all instances converging to the same large-scale structure, dynamical and stellar mass at z = 0 as their reference. These related merger scenarios alone generate an extended spread in stellar halo mass fractions (1.5 dex) comparable to the observed population, with the largest scatter achieved by growing late (z ≤ 1) major mergers that spread out existing stars to create massive, in-situ dominated stellar haloes. Increasing a last major merger at z ∼ 2 brings more accreted stars into the inner regions, resulting in smaller scatter in the outskirts which are predominantly built by subsequent minor events. Exploiting the flexibility of our semi-empirical approach, we show that the diversity of stellar halo masses across scenarios is reduced by allowing shallower slopes in the stellar mass–halo mass relation for dwarf galaxies, while it remains conserved when central stars are born with hotter kinematics across cosmic time. The merger-dependent diversity of stellar haloes thus responds distinctly to assumptions in modelling the central and dwarf galaxies respectively, opening exciting prospects to constrain star formation and feedback at different galactic mass-scales with the coming generation of deep, photometric observatories.