Galaxy formation and evolution

Abstract:

We present a comprehensive analysis of galaxy close-pair fractions and major merger rates to evaluate the importance of mergers in the hierarchical growth of galaxies over cosmic time. This study focuses on the previously poorly understood redshift range of using JADES observations. Our mass-complete sample includes primary galaxies with stellar masses of , having major companions (mass ratio ) selected by pkpc projected separation and redshift proximity criteria. Pair fractions are measured using a statistically robust method incorporating photometric redshift posteriors and available spectroscopic data. The pair fraction evolves with redshift and shows dependence on the stellar mass: at there is an increase up to , followed by a turnover, while at higher stellar masses there is a flattening and weak decline with increasing redshift. Similarly, the derived galaxy major merger rate increases and flattens beyond to per galaxy, showing a weak scaling with stellar mass, driven by the evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function. A comparison between the cumulative mass accretion from major mergers and the mass assembled through star formation indicates that major mergers contribute approximately to the total mass growth over the studied redshift range, which is in agreement with the ex situ mass fraction estimated from our simple numerical model. These results highlight that major mergers contribute little to the direct stellar mass growth compared to in situ star formation but could still play an indirect role by driving star formation itself.

Abstract:

We compare measurements of star formation efficiency to cloud-scale gas properties across the PHANGS– ALMA sample. Dividing 67 galaxies into 1.5 kpc scale regions, we calculate the molecular gas depletion time τdepmol=Σmol/ΣSFR and the star formation efficiency per freefall time ϵffmol=τff/τdepmol for each region. Then we test how τdepmol and ϵffmol vary as functions of the regional mass-weighted mean molecular gas properties on cloud scales (60–150 pc): gas surface density, 〈Σmolcloud〉 , velocity dispersion, 〈σmolcloud〉 , virial parameter, 〈αvircloud〉 , and gravitational freefall time, 〈τffcloud〉 . 〈τffcloud〉 and τdepmol correlate positively, consistent with the expectation that gas density plays a key role in setting the rate of star formation. Our fiducial measurements suggest τdepmol∝〈τffcloud〉0.5 and ϵffmol≈0.34% , though the exact numbers depend on the adopted fitting methods. We also observe anticorrelations between τdepmol and 〈Σmolcloud〉 and between τdepmol and 〈σmolcloud〉 . All three correlations may reflect the same underlying link between density and star formation efficiency combined with systematic variations in the degree to which self-gravity binds molecular gas in galaxies. We highlight the τdepmol – 〈σmolcloud〉 relation because of the lower degree of correlation between the axes. Contrary to theoretical expectations, we observe an anticorrelation between τdepmol and 〈αvircloud〉 and no significant correlation between ϵffmol and 〈αvircloud〉 . Our results depend sensitively on the adopted CO-to-H2 conversion factor, with corrections for excitation and emissivity effects in inner galaxies playing an important role. We emphasize that our simple methodology and clean selection allow for easy comparison to numerical simulations and highlight this as a logical next direction.