New insights into dwarf galaxies

Abstract CEMP-no stars, a subset of carbon enhanced metal poor (CEMP) stars ($\rm [C/Fe]\ge 0.7$ and $\rm [Fe/H]\lesssim -1$) have been discovered in ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies, with Mvir ≈ 108 M⊙ and M* ≈ 103 − 104 M⊙ at z = 0, as well as in the halo of the Milky Way (MW). These CEMP-no stars are local fossils that may reflect the properties of the first (Pop III) and second (Pop II) generation of stars. However, cosmological simulations have struggled to reproduce the observed level of carbon enhancement of the known CEMP-no stars. Here we present new cosmological hydrodynamic zoom-in simulations of isolated UFDs that achieve a gas mass resolution of mgas ≈ 60 M⊙. We include enrichment from Pop III faint supernovae (SNe), with ESN = 0.6 × 1051 erg, to understand the origin of CEMP-no stars. We confirm that Pop III and Pop II stars are mainly responsible for the formation of CEMP and C-normal stars respectively. New to this study, we find that a majority of CEMP-no stars in the observed UFDs and the MW halo can be explained by Pop III SNe with normal explosion energy (ESN = 1.2 × 1051 erg) and Pop II enrichment, but faint SNe might also be needed to produce CEMP-no stars with $\rm [C/Fe]\gtrsim 2$, corresponding to the absolute carbon abundance of $\rm A(C)\gtrsim 6.0$. Furthermore, we find that while we create CEMP-no stars with high carbon ratio $\rm [C/Fe]\approx 3-4$, by adopting faint SNe, it is still challenging to reproduce CEMP-no stars with extreme level of carbon abundance of $\rm A(C)\approx 7.0-7.5$, observed both in the MW halo and UFDs.

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The role of mergers and interactions in driving the evolution of dwarf galaxies over cosmic time

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/staa3443 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 500 (4) ◽

pp. 4937-4957 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

G Martin ◽

R A Jackson ◽

S Kaviraj ◽

H Choi ◽

J E G Devriendt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Star Formation ◽

Dwarf Galaxies ◽

Large Fraction ◽

Structural Evolution ◽

Cosmic Time ◽

Stellar Mass ◽

High Mass ◽

Key Drivers ◽

Mass Assembly

ABSTRACT Dwarf galaxies (M⋆ < 109 M⊙) are key drivers of mass assembly in high-mass galaxies, but relatively little is understood about the assembly of dwarf galaxies themselves. Using the NewHorizon cosmological simulation (∼40 pc spatial resolution), we investigate how mergers and fly-bys drive the mass assembly and structural evolution of around 1000 field and group dwarfs up to z = 0.5. We find that, while dwarf galaxies often exhibit disturbed morphologies (5 and 20 per cent are disturbed at z = 1 and z = 3 respectively), only a small proportion of the morphological disturbances seen in dwarf galaxies are driven by mergers at any redshift (for 109 M⊙, mergers drive under 20 per cent morphological disturbances). They are instead primarily the result of interactions that do not end in a merger (e.g. fly-bys). Given the large fraction of apparently morphologically disturbed dwarf galaxies which are not, in fact, merging, this finding is particularly important to future studies identifying dwarf mergers and post-mergers morphologically at intermediate and high redshifts. Dwarfs typically undergo one major and one minor merger between z = 5 and z = 0.5, accounting for 10 per cent of their total stellar mass. Mergers can also drive moderate star formation enhancements at lower redshifts (3 or 4 times at z = 1), but this accounts for only a few per cent of stellar mass in the dwarf regime given their infrequency. Non-merger interactions drive significantly smaller star formation enhancements (around two times), but their preponderance relative to mergers means they account for around 10 per cent of stellar mass formed in the dwarf regime.

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NIHAO – XXV. Convergence in the cusp-core transformation of cold dark matter haloes at high star formation thresholds

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/staa3028 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 499 (2) ◽

pp. 2648-2661

Author(s):

Aaron A Dutton ◽

Tobias Buck ◽

Andrea V Macciò ◽

Keri L Dixon ◽

Marvin Blank ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Dark Matter ◽

Star Formation ◽

Galaxy Formation ◽

Cold Dark Matter ◽

Dwarf Galaxies ◽

Dwarf Galaxy ◽

Good Description ◽

Good Match ◽

Virial Mass ◽

Density Threshold

ABSTRACT We use cosmological hydrodynamical galaxy formation simulations from the NIHAO project to investigate the response of cold dark matter (CDM) haloes to baryonic processes. Previous work has shown that the halo response is primarily a function of the ratio between galaxy stellar mass and total virial mass, and the density threshold above which gas is eligible to form stars, n[cm−3]. At low n all simulations in the literature agree that dwarf galaxy haloes are cuspy, but at high n ≳ 100 there is no consensus. We trace halo contraction in dwarf galaxies with n ≳ 100 reported in some previous simulations to insufficient spatial resolution. Provided the adopted star formation threshold is appropriate for the resolution of the simulation, we show that the halo response is remarkably stable for n ≳ 5, up to the highest star formation threshold that we test, n = 500. This free parameter can be calibrated using the observed clustering of young stars. Simulations with low thresholds n ≤ 1 predict clustering that is too weak, while simulations with high star formation thresholds n ≳ 5, are consistent with the observed clustering. Finally, we test the CDM predictions against the circular velocities of nearby dwarf galaxies. Low thresholds predict velocities that are too high, while simulations with n ∼ 10 provide a good match to the observations. We thus conclude that the CDM model provides a good description of the structure of galaxies on kpc scales provided the effects of baryons are properly captured.

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Tidal Dwarf Galaxies

Highlights of Astronomy ◽

10.1017/s153929960002027x ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 141-144

Author(s):

P.-A. Duc ◽

I.F. Mirabel ◽

E. Brinks

Keyword(s):

Environmental Effects ◽

Intergalactic Medium ◽

Dwarf Galaxies ◽

Star Forming ◽

Evolution Of Galaxies ◽

New Generation

The life and evolution of galaxies are dramatically affected by environmental effects. Interactions with the intergalactic medium and collisions with companions cause major perturbations in the morphology and contents of galaxies: in particular stars and gas clouds may be gravitationally pulled out from their parent galaxies during tidal encounters, forming rings, tails and bridges. This debris of collisions lies at the origin of a new generation of small galaxies, the so-called “tidal dwarf galaxies” (hereafter TDGs). Such an exotic way of forming galaxies was put forward by Schweizer (1978) and by Mirabel et al. (1992), who clearly observed the genesis of a star-forming object, out of material tidally expelled from the interacting system NGC 4038/39 (“The Antennae”). Recent studies, based on optical and HI observations, have shown that TDGs actually form a class of “recycled” objects with some properties similar to the more classical dwarf irregulars (dIrr) and blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs).

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Do ultracompact dwarf galaxies form monolithically or as merged star cluster complexes?

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/stab330 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 502 (4) ◽

pp. 5185-5199

Author(s):

Hamidreza Mahani ◽

Akram Hasani Zonoozi ◽

Hosein Haghi ◽

Tereza Jeřábková ◽

Pavel Kroupa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Dwarf Galaxies ◽

Initial Conditions ◽

Mass Function ◽

Star Cluster ◽

Initial Mass Function ◽

Central Mass ◽

Cluster Complexes ◽

V Band ◽

Stellar Masses ◽

The Imf

ABSTRACT Some ultracompact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) have elevated observed dynamical V-band mass-to-light (M/LV) ratios with respect to what is expected from their stellar populations assuming a canonical initial mass function (IMF). Observations have also revealed the presence of a compact dark object in the centres of several UCDs, having a mass of a few to 15 per cent of the present-day stellar mass of the UCD. This central mass concentration has typically been interpreted as a supermassive black hole, but can in principle also be a subcluster of stellar remnants. We explore the following two formation scenarios of UCDs: (i) monolithic collapse and (ii) mergers of star clusters in cluster complexes as are observed in massively starbursting regions. We explore the physical properties of the UCDs at different evolutionary stages assuming different initial stellar masses of the UCDs and the IMF being either universal or changing systematically with metallicity and density according to the integrated Galactic IMF theory. While the observed elevated M/LV ratios of the UCDs cannot be reproduced if the IMF is invariant and universal, the empirically derived IMF that varies systematically with density and metallicity shows agreement with the observations. Incorporating the UCD-mass-dependent retention fraction of dark remnants improves this agreement. In addition, we apply the results of N-body simulations to young UCDs and show that the same initial conditions describing the observed M/LV ratios reproduce the observed relation between the half-mass radii and the present-day masses of the UCDs. The findings thus suggest that the majority of UCDs that have elevated M/LV ratios could have formed monolithically with significant remnant-mass components that are centrally concentrated, while those with small M/LV values may be merged star cluster complexes.

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