Massive spheroids can form in single minor mergers

Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 12 pages, 6 figuresUnderstanding how rotationally supported discs transform into dispersion-dominated spheroids is central to our comprehension of galaxy evolution. Morphological transformation is largely merger-driven. While major mergers can efficiently create spheroids, recent work has highlighted the significant role of other processes, like minor mergers, in driving morphological change. Given their rich merger histories, spheroids typically exhibit large fractions of ‘ex situ’ stellar mass, i.e. mass that is accreted, via mergers, from external objects. This is particularly true for the most massive galaxies, whose stellar masses typically cannot be attained without a large number of mergers. Here, we explore an unusual population of extremely massive (M ∗ > 10 11M) spheroids, in the Horizon-AGN simulation, which exhibit anomalously low ex situ mass fractions, indicating that they form without recourse to significant merging. These systems form in a single minor-merger event (with typical merger mass ratios of 0.11–0.33), with a specific orbital configuration, where the satellite orbit is virtually co-planar with the disc of the massive galaxy. The merger triggers a catastrophic change in morphology, over only a few hundred Myr, coupled with strong in situ star formation. While this channel produces a minority (∼5 per cent) of such galaxies, our study demonstrates that the formation of at least some of the most massive spheroids need not involve major mergers – or any significant merging at all – contrary to what is classically believed.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Rest-UV Absorption Lines as Metallicity Estimator: the Metal Content of Star-Forming Galaxies at z~5

We measure a relation between the depth of four prominent rest-UV absorption complexes and metallicity for local galaxies and verify it up to z~3. We then apply this relation to a sample of 224 galaxies at 3.5 = 4.8) in COSMOS, for which unique UV spectra from DEIMOS and accurate stellar masses from SPLASH are available. The average galaxy population at z~5 and log(M/Msun) > 9 is characterized by 0.3-0.4 dex (in units of 12+log(O/H)) lower metallicities than at z~2, but comparable to z~3.5. We find galaxies with weak/no Ly-alpha emission to have metallicities comparable to z~2 galaxies and therefore may represent an evolved sub-population of z~5 galaxies. We find a correlation between metallicity and dust in good agreement with local galaxies and an inverse trend between metallicity and star-formation rate (SFR) consistent with observations at z~2. The relation between stellar mass and metallicity (MZ relation) is similar to z~3.5, however, there are indications of it being slightly shallower, in particular for the young, Ly-alpha emitting galaxies. We show that, within a "bathtub" approach, a shallower MZ relation is expected in the case of a fast (exponential) build-up of stellar mass with an e-folding time of 100-200 Myr. Due to this fast evolution, the process of dust production and metal enrichment as a function of mass could be more stochastic in the first billion years of galaxy formation compared to later times.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables; Submitted to Ap

Kinematic unrest of low mass galaxy groups

In an effort to better understand the formation of galaxy groups, we examine the kinematics of a large sample of spectroscopically confirmed X-ray galaxy groups in the Cosmic Evolution Survey with a high sampling of galaxy group members up to z & x2004;=& x2004;1. We compare our results with predictions from the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation of HORIZON-AGN. Using a phase-space analysis of dynamics of groups with halo masses of M-200c & x2004;similar to & x2004;10(12.6) - 10(14.50)& x2006;M-circle dot, we show that the brightest group galaxies (BGG) in low mass galaxy groups (M-200c & x2004;<& x2004;2 x 10(13)& x2006;M-circle dot) have larger proper motions relative to the group velocity dispersion than high mass groups. The dispersion in the ratio of the BGG proper velocity to the velocity dispersion of the group, sigma(BGG)/sigma(group), is on average 1.48 +/- 0.13 for low mass groups and 1.01 +/- 0.09 for high mass groups. A comparative analysis of the HORIZON-AGN simulation reveals a similar increase in the spread of peculiar velocities of BGGs with decreasing group mass, though consistency in the amplitude, shape, and mode of the BGG peculiar velocity distribution is only achieved for high mass groups. The groups hosting a BGG with a large peculiar velocity are more likely to be offset from the L-x - sigma(v) relation; this is probably because the peculiar motion of the BGG is influenced by the accretion of new members.Peer reviewe

A Coherent Study of Emission Lines from Broad-Band Photometry: Specific Star-Formation Rates and [OIII]/H{\beta} Ratio at 3 < z < 6

We measure the H{\alpha} and [OIII] emission line properties as well as specific star-formation rates (sSFR) of spectroscopically confirmed 3<z<6 galaxies in COSMOS from their observed colors vs. redshift evolution. Our model describes consistently the ensemble of galaxies including intrinsic properties (age, metallicity, star-formation history), dust-attenuation, and optical emission lines. We forward-model the measured H{\alpha} equivalent-widths (EW) to obtain the sSFR out to z~6 without stellar mass fitting. We find a strongly increasing rest-frame H{\alpha} EW that is flattening off above z~2.5 with average EWs of 300-600A at z~6. The sSFR is increasing proportional to (1+z)^2.4 at z<2.2 and (1+z)^1.5 at higher redshifts, indicative of a fast mass build-up in high-z galaxies within e-folding times of 100-200Myr at z~6. The redshift evolution at z>3 cannot be fully explained in a picture of cold accretion driven growth. We find a progressively increasing [OIII]{\lambda}5007/H{\beta} ratio out to z~6, consistent with the ratios in local galaxies selected by increasing H{\alpha} EW (i.e., sSFR). This demonstrates the potential of using "local high-z analogs" to investigate the spectroscopic properties and relations of galaxies in the re-ionization epoch.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, 3 table

How to Quench a Dwarf Galaxy: The Impact of Inhomogeneous Reionization on Dwarf Galaxies and Cosmic Filaments

We use the SPHINX suite of high-resolution cosmological radiation hydrodynamics simulations to study how spatially and temporally inhomogeneous reionization impacts the baryonic content of dwarf galaxies and cosmic filaments. The SPHINX simulations simultaneously capture the large-scale process of reionization, model the escape of ionising radiation from thousands of galaxies, and resolve haloes well below the atomic cooling threshold. This makes them an ideal tool for examining how reionization impacts star formation and the gas content of dwarf galaxies. We compare simulations with and without stellar radiation to isolate the effects of radiation feedback from that of supernova, cosmic expansion, and numerical resolution. We find that the gas content of cosmic filaments can be reduced by more than 80% following reionization. The gas inflow rates into haloes with $M_{vir}\lesssim10^8M_{\odot}$ are strongly affected and are reduced by more than an order of magnitude compared to the simulation without reionization. A significant increase in gas outflow rates is found for halo masses $M_{vir}\lesssim7\times10^7M_{\odot}$. Our simulations show that inflow suppression (i.e. starvation), rather than photoevaporation, is the dominant mechanism by which the baryonic content of high-redshift dwarf galaxies is regulated. At fixed redshift and halo mass, there is a large scatter in the halo baryon fractions that is entirely dictated by the timing of reionization in the local region surrounding a halo. Finally, although the gas content of high-redshift dwarf galaxies is significantly impacted by reionization, we find that most haloes with $M_{vir}\lesssim10^8M_{\odot}$ can remain self-shielded and form stars long after reionization, until their local gas reservoir is depleted, suggesting that local group dwarf galaxies do not necessarily exhibit star formation histories that peak prior to $z=6$

Segmented Hellenic slab rollback driving Aegean deformation and seismicity

The NE dipping slab of the Hellenic subduction is imaged in unprecedented detail using teleseismic receiver function analysis on a dense 2-D seismic array. Mapping of slab geometry for over 300 km along strike and down to 100 km depth reveals a segmentation into dipping panels by along-dip faults. Resolved intermediate-depth seismicity commonly attributed to dehydration embrittlement is shown to be clustered along these faults. Large earthquakes occurrence within the upper and lower plate and at the interplate megathrust boundary show a striking correlation with the slab faults suggesting high mechanical coupling between the two plates. Our results imply that the general slab rollback occurs here in a differential piecewise manner imposing its specific stress and deformation pattern onto the overriding Aegean plate

The Horizon-AGN simulation: evolution of galaxy properties over cosmic time

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.We compare the predictions of Horizon-AGN, a hydro-dynamical cosmological simulation that uses an adaptive mesh refinement code, to observational data in the redshift range 0 < z < 6. We study the reproduction, by the simulation, of quantities that trace the aggregate stellar-mass growth of galaxies over cosmic time: luminosity and stellar-mass functions, the star formation main sequence, rest-frame UV-optical-near infrared colours and the cosmic star-formation history. We show that Horizon-AGN, which is not tuned to reproduce the local Universe, produces good overall agreement with these quantities, from the present day to the epoch when the Universe was 5% of its current age. By comparison to Horizon-noAGN, a twin simulation without AGN feedback, we quantify how feedback from black holes is likely to help shape galaxy stellar-mass growth in the redshift range 0 < z < 6, particularly in the most massive galaxies. Our results demonstrate that Horizon-AGN successfully captures the evolutionary trends of observed galaxies over the lifetime of the Universe, making it an excellent tool for studying the processes that drive galaxy evolution and making predictions for the next generation of galaxy surveys.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The SPLASH Survey: Quiescent Galaxies Are More Strongly Clustered but Are Not Necessarily Located in High-density Environments

We use the stellar-mass-selected catalog from the Spitzer Large Area Survey with Hyper-Suprime-Cam (SPLASH) in the COSMOS field to study the environments of galaxies via galaxy density and clustering analyses up to z ~ 2.5. The clustering strength of quiescent galaxies exceeds that of star-forming galaxies, implying that quiescent galaxies are preferentially located in more massive halos. When using local density measurement, we find a clear positive quiescent fraction–density relation at z 1.5, the quiescent fraction depends little on the local density, even though clustering shows that quiescent galaxies are in more massive halos. We argue that at high redshift the typical halo size falls below 10^(13)M⊙, where intrinsically the local density measurements are so varied that they do not trace the halo mass. Our results thus suggest that in the high-redshift universe, halo mass may be the key in quenching the star formation in galaxies, rather than the conventionally measured galaxy density

Identifying the progenitors of present-day early-type galaxies in observational surveys: correcting `progenitor bias' using the Horizon-AGN simulation

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.As endpoints of the hierarchical mass-assembly process, the stellar populations of local earlytype galaxies encode the assembly history of galaxies over cosmic time. We useHorizon-AGN, a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, to study the merger histories of local early-type galaxies and track how the morphological mix of their progenitors evolves over time. We provide a framework for alleviating 'progenitor bias' - the bias that occurs if one uses only early-type galaxies to study the progenitor population. Early types attain their final morphology at relatively early epochs - by z ~ 1, around 60 per cent of today's early types have had their last significant merger. At all redshifts, the majority of mergers have one late-type progenitor, with late-late mergers dominating at z > 1.5 and early-early mergers becoming significant only at z < 0.5. Progenitor bias is severe at all but the lowest redshifts - e.g. at z~0.6, less than 50 per cent of the stellar mass in today's early types is actually in progenitors with early-type morphology, while, at z~ 2, studying only early types misses almost all (80 per cent) of the stellar mass that eventually ends up in local early-type systems. At high redshift, almost all massive late-type galaxies, regardless of their local environment or star formation rate, are progenitors of local early-type galaxies, as are lowermass (M* < 10 10.5 M ⊙) late-types as long as they reside in high-density environments. In this new era of large observational surveys (e.g. LSST, JWST), this study provides a framework for studying how today's early-type galaxies have been built up over cosmic time.Peer reviewe

3-D sediment-basement tomography of the Northern Marmara trough by a dense OBS network at the nodes of a grid of controlled source profiles along the North Anatolian fault

A 3-D tomographic inversion of first arrival times of shot profiles recorded by a dense 2-D OBS network provides an unprecedented constraint on the P-wave velocities heterogeneity of the upper-crustal part of the North Marmara Trough (NMT), over a region of 180 km long by 50 km wide. One of the specific aims of this controlled source tomography is to provide a 3-D initial model for the local earthquake tomography (LET). Hence, in an original way, the controlled source inversion has been performed by using a code dedicated to LET. After several tests to check the results trade-off with the inversion parameters, we build up a 3-D a priori velocity model, in which the sea-bottom topography, the acoustic and the crystalline basements and the Moho interfaces have been considered. The reliability of the obtained features has been checked by checkerboard tests and also by their comparison with the deep-penetration multichannel seismic profiles, and with the wide-angle reflection and refraction modelled profiles. This study provides the first 3-D view of the basement topography along the active North Anatolian fault beneath the Marmara Sea, even beneath the deepest part of three sedimentary basins of NMT. Clear basement depressions reaching down 6 km depth below the sea level (bsl) have been found beneath these basins. The North Imralı Basin located on the southern continental shelf is observed with a similar sedimentary thickness as its northern neighbours. Between Central and Çınarcık basins, the Central High rises up to 3 km depth below (bsl). Its crest position is offset by 10 km northwestward relatively to the bathymetric crest. On the contrary, Tekirdağ and Central basins appear linked, forming a 60-km-long basement depression. Beneath the bathymetric relief of Western High low velocities are observed down to 6 km depth (bsl) and no basement high have been found. The obtained 3-D Vp heterogeneity model allows the consideration of the 3-D supracrustal heterogeneity into the future earthquake relocations in this region. The topographic map of the pre-kinematic basement offers the possibility to take into account the locking depth variations in future geohazard estimations by geomechanical modelling in this region