Abstract:By means of a series of N-body/SPH simulations we investigate the morphological properties of thick stellar disks formed through minor mergers with, e.g. a range of gas-to-stellar mass ratios. We show that the vertical surface density profile of the post-merger thick disk follows a sech function and has an excess in the regions furthest away from the disk mid-plane (z 2 kpc). This stellar excess also follows a sech function with a larger scale height than the main thick disk component (except at large radii). … Show more
“…All together, this suggests that the low-α stars have been accreted from satellite galaxies including the progenitor galaxy of ω Cen (Bekki & Freeman 2003). The high-α stars, on the other hand, are more likely to be formed "in situ" in the Galactic bulge or disk, and then "heated" to halo kinematics by the merging satellites, as suggested from numerical simulations (Zolotov et al 2009(Zolotov et al , 2010Purcell et al 2010;Qu et al 2011).…”
Context. Current models of galaxy formation predict that the Galactic halo was assembled hierarchically. By measuring abundance ratios in stars it may be possible to identify substructures in the halo resulting from this process.
“…All together, this suggests that the low-α stars have been accreted from satellite galaxies including the progenitor galaxy of ω Cen (Bekki & Freeman 2003). The high-α stars, on the other hand, are more likely to be formed "in situ" in the Galactic bulge or disk, and then "heated" to halo kinematics by the merging satellites, as suggested from numerical simulations (Zolotov et al 2009(Zolotov et al , 2010Purcell et al 2010;Qu et al 2011).…”
Context. Current models of galaxy formation predict that the Galactic halo was assembled hierarchically. By measuring abundance ratios in stars it may be possible to identify substructures in the halo resulting from this process.
“…Heating during the merger epoch (Quinn et al 1993;Qu et al 2011;House et al 2011), or scattering of stars by massive clumps (Bournaud et al 2009) may have caused additional thickening of the already formed thick stellar component (Quinn et al 1993;Qu et al 2011).…”
Section: Inside-out Formation Of the Diskmentioning
We analyze a sample of solar neighborhood stars that have high-quality abundance determinations and show that there are two distinct regimes of [α/Fe] versus age, which we identify as the epochs of the thick and thin disk formation. A tight correlation between metallicity and [α/Fe] versus age is clearly identifiable for thick disk stars, implying that this population formed from a well mixed interstellar medium, probably initially in starburst and then more quiescently, over a time scale of 4−5 Gyr. Thick disk stars have vertical velocity dispersions which correlate with age, with the youngest objects of this population having small scale heights similar to those of thin disk stars. A natural consequence of these two results is that a vertical metallicity gradient is expected in this population. We suggest that the youngest thick disk set the initial conditions from which the inner thin disk started to form about 8 Gyr ago, at [Fe/H] in the range of (−0.1, +0.1) dex and [α/Fe] ∼ 0.1 dex. This also provides an explanation for the apparent coincidence between the existence of a step in metallicity at 7−10 kpc in the thin disk and the confinement of the thick disk within R < 10 kpc. We suggest that the outer thin disk developed outside the influence of the thick disk, giving rise to a separate structure, but also that the high alphaenrichment of those regions may originate from a primordial pollution of the outer regions by the gas expelled from the forming thick disk. Metal-poor thin disk stars ([Fe/H] < −0.4 dex) in the solar vicinity, whose properties are best explained by them originating in the outer disk, are shown to be as old as the youngest thick disk (9−10 Gyr). This implies that the outer thin disk started to form while the thick disk was still forming stars in the inner parts of the Galaxy. Hence, while the overall inner (thick+thin) disk is comprised of two structures with different scale lengths and whose combination may give the impression of an inside-out formation process, the thin disk itself probably formed its first stars in its outskirts. Moreover, we point out that, given the tight age−metallicity and age-[α/Fe] relations that exist in the thick disk, an inside-out process would give rise to a radial gradient in metallicity and α-elements in this population, which is not observed. Finally, we argue that our results leave little room for radial migration (in the sense of churning) either to have contaminated the solar vicinity, or, on a larger scale, to have redistributed stars in significant proportion across the solar annulus.
“…This model has a high gas mass fraction (50%) and the galaxy was evolved in isolation, without companions or tidal interactions (Qu et al 2011). We allowed the disk to go unstable against star-formation and it developed a "clumpy" morphology which evolved with time (see Di Matteo et al 2008, for details of the initial conditions and evolution of the simulation).…”
Section: Construction Of Artificial Ifu Observationsmentioning
We have analyzed the properties of the Hα and [Nii]λ6583 rest-frame optical emission lines of a sample of 53 intensely star forming galaxies at z = 1.3 to 2.7 observed with SINFONI on the ESO-VLT. Similar to previous authors, we find large velocity dispersions in the lines, σ = few 10−250 km s −1 . Our data agree well with simulations where we applied beam-smearing and assumed a scaling relation of the form: velocity dispersion is proportional to the square root of the star-formation intensity (star-formation rate per unit surface area). We conclude that the dispersions are primarily driven by star formation. To explain the high surface brightness and optical line ratios, high thermal pressures in the warm ionized medium, WIM, are required (P/k ∼ > 10 6 −10 7 K cm −3 ). Such thermal pressures in the WIM are similar to those observed in nearby starburst galaxies, but occur over much larger physical scales. Moreover, the relatively low ionization parameters necessary to fit the high surface brightnesses and optical line ratios suggest that the gas is not only directly associated with regions of star formation, but is wide spread throughout the general interstellar medium (ISM). Thus the optical emission line gas is a tracer of the large scale dynamics of the bulk of the ISM. We present a simple model for the energy input from young stars in an accreting galaxy, to argue that the intense star-formation is supporting high turbulent pressure, which roughly balances the gravitational pressure and thus enables distant gas accreting disks to maintain a Toomre disk instability parameter Q ∼ 1. For a star formation efficiency of 3%, only 5−15% of the mechanical energy from young stars that is deposited in the ISM is needed to support the level of turbulence required for maintaining this balance. Since this balance is maintained by energy injected into the ISM by the young stars themselves, this suggests that star formation in high redshift galaxies is self-regulating.
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