Pressure balance in the multiphase ISM of cosmologically simulated disc galaxies

Pressure balance plays a central role in models of the interstellar medium (ISM), but whether and how pressure balance is realized in a realistic multiphase ISM is not yet well understood. We address this question by using a set of FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations of Milky Way-mass disc galaxies, in which a multiphase ISM is self-consistently shaped by gravity, cooling, and stellar feedback. We analyse how gravity determines the vertical pressure profile as well as how the total ISM pressure is partitioned between different phases and components (thermal, dispersion/turbulence, and bulk flows). We show that, on average and consistent with previous more idealized simulations, the total ISM pressure balances the weight of the overlying gas. Deviations from vertical pressure balance increase with increasing galactocentric radius and with decreasing averaging scale. The different phases are in rough total pressure equilibrium with one another, but with large deviations from thermal pressure equilibrium owing to kinetic support in the cold and warm phases, which dominate the total pressure near the mid-plane. Bulk flows (e.g. inflows and fountains) are important at a few disc scale heights, while thermal pressure from hot gas dominates at larger heights. Overall, the total mid-plane pressure is well-predicted by the weight of the disc gas and we show that it also scales linearly with the star formation rate surface density (ςSFR). These results support the notion that the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation arises because ςSFR and the gas surface density (ςg) are connected via the ISM mid-plane pressure

3D gas-phase elemental abundances across the formation histories of Milky Way-mass galaxies in the FIRE simulations: Initial conditions for chemical tagging

We use FIRE-2 simulations to examine 3D variations of gas-phase elemental abundances of [O/H], [Fe/H], and [N/H] in 11 MW and M31-mass galaxies across their formation histories at z ≤ 1.5 (tlookback ≤ 9.4 Gyr), motivated by characterizing the initial conditions of stars for chemical tagging. Gas within 1 kpc of the disc mid-plane is vertically homogeneous to ≲ 0.008 dex at all z ≤ 1.5. We find negative radial gradients (metallicity decreases with galactocentric radius) at all times, which steepen over time from -0.01 dex kpc-1 at z = 1 (tlookback} = 7.8 Gyr) to -0.03 dex kpc-1 at z = 0, and which broadly agree with observations of the MW, M31, and nearby MW/M31-mass galaxies. Azimuthal variations at fixed radius are typically 0.14 dex at z = 1, reducing to 0.05 dex at z = 0. Thus, over time radial gradients become steeper while azimuthal variations become weaker (more homogeneous). As a result, azimuthal variations were larger than radial variations at z ≥ 0.8 (tlookback ≳ 6.9 Gyr). Furthermore, elemental abundances are measurably homogeneous (to ≤0.05 dex) across a radial range of Δ R ≈ 3.5 kpc at z ≥ 1 and Δ R ≈ 1.7 kpc at z = 0. We also measure full distributions of elemental abundances, finding typically negatively skewed normal distributions at z ≥ 1 that evolve to typically Gaussian distributions by z = 0. Our results on gas abundances inform the initial conditions for stars, including the spatial and temporal scales for applying chemical tagging to understand stellar birth in the MW

Live fast, die young: GMC lifetimes in the FIRE cosmological simulations of Milky Way mass galaxies

We present the first measurement of the lifetimes of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in cosmological simulations at z = 0, using the Latte suite of FIRE-2 simulations of Milky Way (MW) mass galaxies. We track GMCs with total gas mass ≳105 M⊙ at high spatial (∼1 pc), mass (7100 M⊙), and temporal (1 Myr) resolution. Our simulated GMCs are consistent with the distribution of masses for massive GMCs in the MW and nearby galaxies. We find GMC lifetimes of 5-7 Myr, or 1-2 freefall times, on average, with less than 2 per cent of clouds living longer than 20 Myr. We find decreasing GMC lifetimes with increasing virial parameter, and weakly increasing GMC lifetimes with galactocentric radius, implying that environment affects the evolutionary cycle of GMCs. However, our GMC lifetimes show no systematic dependence on GMC mass or amount of star formation. These results are broadly consistent with inferences from the literature and provide an initial investigation into ultimately understanding the physical processes that govern GMC lifetimes in a cosmological setting

Fiery Cores: Bursty and Smooth Star Formation Distributions across Galaxy Centers in Cosmological Zoom-in Simulations

We present an analysis of the R ≲ 1.5 kpc core regions of seven simulated Milky Way-mass galaxies, from the FIRE-2 (Feedback in Realistic Environments) cosmological zoom-in simulation suite, for a finely sampled period (Δt = 2.2 Myr) of 22 Myr at z ≈ 0, and compare them with star formation rate (SFR) and gas surface density observations of the Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). Despite not being tuned to reproduce the detailed structure of the CMZ, we find that four of these galaxies are consistent with CMZ observations at some point during this 22 Myr period. The galaxies presented here are not homogeneous in their central structures, roughly dividing into two morphological classes; (a) several of the galaxies have very asymmetric gas and SFR distributions, with intense (compact) starbursts occurring over a period of roughly 10 Myr, and structures on highly eccentric orbits through the CMZ, whereas (b) others have smoother gas and SFR distributions, with only slowly varying SFRs over the period analyzed. In class (a) centers, the orbital motion of gas and star-forming complexes across small apertures (R ≲ 150 pc, analogously |l| < 1° in the CMZ observations) contributes as much to tracers of star formation/dense gas appearing in those apertures, as the internal evolution of those structures does. These asymmetric/bursty galactic centers can simultaneously match CMZ gas and SFR observations, demonstrating that time-varying star formation can explain the CMZ's low star formation efficiency

HALO7D II: The Halo Velocity Ellipsoid and Velocity Anisotropy with Distant Main-sequence Stars

The Halo Assembly in Lambda Cold Dark Matter: Observations in 7 Dimensions (HALO7D) data set consists of Keck II/DEIMOS spectroscopy and Hubble Space Telescope-measured proper motions of Milky Way halo main-sequence turnoff stars in the CANDELS fields. In this paper, the second in the HALO7D series, we present the proper motions for the HALO7D sample. We discuss our measurement methodology, which makes use of a Bayesian mixture modeling approach for creating the stationary reference frame of distant galaxies. Using the 3D kinematic HALO7D sample, we estimate the parameters of the halo velocity ellipsoid, , and the velocity anisotropy β. Using the full HALO7D sample, we find at kpc. We also estimate the ellipsoid parameters for our sample split into three apparent magnitude bins; the posterior medians for these estimates of β are consistent with one another. Finally, we estimate β in each of the individual HALO7D fields. We find that the velocity anisotropy β can vary from field-to field, which suggests that the halo is not phase-mixed at . We explore the β variation across the skies of two stellar halos from the Latte suite of FIRE-2 simulations, finding that both simulated galaxies show β variation over a range similar to that of the variation observed across the four HALO7D fields. The accretion histories of the two simulated galaxies result in different β variation patterns; spatially mapping β is thus a way forward in characterizing the accretion history of the Galaxy