Particle tagging and its implications for stellar population dynamics

Le Bret, T.; Pontzen, A.; Cooper, A.P.; Frenk, C.; Zolotov, A.; Brooks, A.M.; Governato, F.; Parry, O.H.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stx552

Particle tagging and its implications for stellar population dynamics

Le Bret, T.; Pontzen, A.; Cooper, A.P.; Frenk, C.; Zolotov, A.; Brooks, A.M.; Governato, F.; Parry, O.H.

Authors

T. Le Bret

A. Pontzen

A.P. Cooper

Professor Carlos Frenk c.s.frenk@durham.ac.uk
Professor

A. Zolotov

A.M. Brooks

F. Governato

O.H. Parry

Abstract

We establish a controlled comparison between the properties of galactic stellar haloes obtained with hydrodynamical simulations and with ‘particle tagging’. Tagging is a fast way to obtain stellar population dynamics: instead of tracking gas and star formation, it ‘paints’ stars directly on to a suitably defined subset of dark matter particles in a collisionless, dark-matter-only simulation. Our study shows that ‘live’ particle tagging schemes, where stellar masses are painted on to the dark matter particles dynamically throughout the simulation, can generate good fits to the hydrodynamical stellar density profiles of a central Milky Way-like galaxy and its most prominent substructure. Energy diffusion processes are crucial to reshaping the distribution of stars in infalling spheroidal systems and hence the final stellar halo. We conclude that the success of any particular tagging scheme hinges on this diffusion being taken into account, and discuss the role of different subgrid feedback prescriptions in driving this diffusion.

Citation

Le Bret, T., Pontzen, A., Cooper, A., Frenk, C., Zolotov, A., Brooks, A., …Parry, O. (2017). Particle tagging and its implications for stellar population dynamics. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 468(3), 3212-3222. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx552

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 1, 2017
Online Publication Date	Mar 8, 2017
Publication Date	Jul 1, 2017
Deposit Date	Jul 18, 2017
Publicly Available Date	Jul 18, 2017
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	468
Issue	3
Pages	3212-3222
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx552

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Copyright Statement
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2017 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.