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Rotation rates, sizes and star formation efficiencies of a representative population of simulated disc galaxies

McCarthy, I.G.; Schaye, J.; Font, A.S.; Theuns, T.; Frenk, C.S.; Crain, R.A.; Dalla Vecchia, C.

Rotation rates, sizes and star formation efficiencies of a representative population of simulated disc galaxies Thumbnail


Authors

I.G. McCarthy

J. Schaye

A.S. Font

R.A. Crain

C. Dalla Vecchia



Abstract

We examine the rotation rates, sizes and star formation (SF) efficiencies of a representative population of simulated disc galaxies extracted from the Galaxies–Intergalactic Medium Interaction Calculation (GIMIC) suite of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. These simulations include efficient, but energetically feasible supernova feedback, but have not been tuned in any way to produce ‘realistic’ disc galaxies. Yet, they generate a large number of discs, without requiring extremely high resolution. Over the wide galaxy stellar mass range, 9.0 ≲ log 10 [M*(M⊙)] < 10.5, the simulations reproduce the observed Tully–Fisher relation, the rotation curves of disc galaxies in bins of stellar mass, the mass–size relation of disc galaxies, the optical rotation to virial circular velocity ratio (‘Vopt/Vvir’) and the SF efficiencies of disc galaxies as inferred from stacked weak lensing and stacked satellite kinematics observations. They also reproduce the specific star formation rates of ∼L* galaxies but predict too low levels of SF for low-mass galaxies, which is plausibly due to the finite resolution of the simulations. At higher stellar masses, log10[M*(M⊙)] > 10.6, the simulated galaxies are too concentrated and have too high SF efficiencies. We conjecture that this shortcoming reflects the neglect of feedback from accreting supermassive black holes in these simulations. We conclude that it is possible to generate a representative population of disc galaxies that reproduces many of the observed trends of local disc galaxies using standard numerical hydrodynamic techniques and a plausible implementation of the ‘subgrid’ astrophysical processes thought to be relevant to galaxy formation.

Citation

McCarthy, I., Schaye, J., Font, A., Theuns, T., Frenk, C., Crain, R., & Dalla Vecchia, C. (2012). Rotation rates, sizes and star formation efficiencies of a representative population of simulated disc galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 427(1), 379-392. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21951.x

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 16, 2012
Online Publication Date Jan 28, 2013
Publication Date Nov 21, 2012
Deposit Date Mar 6, 2013
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 427
Issue 1
Pages 379-392
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21951.x

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2012 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.





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