Star Formation, Supernovae Feedback and the Angular Momentum Problem in Numerical CDM Cosmogony: Half Way There?

We present a smoothed particle hydrodynamic (SPH) simulation that reproduces a galaxy that is a moderate facsimile of those observed. The primary failing point of previous simulations of disk formation, namely excessive transport of angular momentum from gas to dark matter, is ameliorated by the inclusion of a supernova feedback algorithm that allows energy to persist in the model ISM for a period corresponding to the lifetime of stellar associations. The inclusion of feedback leads to a disk at a redshift $z=0.52$, with a specific angular momentum content within 10% of the value required to fit observations. An exponential fit to the disk baryon surface density gives a scale length within 17% of the theoretical value. Runs without feedback, with or without star formation, exhibit the drastic angular momentum transport observed elsewhere.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

The cosmological origin of the Tully-Fisher relation

We use high-resolution cosmological simulations that include the effects of gasdynamics and star formation to investigate the origin of the Tully-Fisher relation in the standard Cold Dark Matter cosmogony. Luminosities are computed for each model galaxy using their full star formation histories and the latest spectrophotometric models. We find that at z=0 the stellar mass of model galaxies is proportional to the total baryonic mass within the virial radius of their surrounding halos. Circular velocity then correlates tightly with the total luminosity of the galaxy, reflecting the equivalence between mass and circular velocity of systems identified in a cosmological context. The slope of the relation steepens slightly from the red to the blue bandpasses, and is in fairly good agreement with observations. Its scatter is small, decreasing from \~0.45 mag in the U-band to ~0.34 mag in the K-band. The particular cosmological model we explore here seems unable to account for the zero-point of the correlation. Model galaxies are too faint at z=0 (by about two magnitudes) if the circular velocity at the edge of the luminous galaxy is used as an estimator of the rotation speed. The Tully-Fisher relation is brighter in the past, by about ~0.7 magnitudes in the B-band at z=1, at odds with recent observations of z~1 galaxies. We conclude that the slope and tightness of the Tully-Fisher relation can be naturally explained in hierarchical models but that its normalization and evolution depend strongly on the star formation algorithm chosen and on the cosmological parameters that determine the universal baryon fraction and the time of assembly of galaxies of different mass.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures included, submitted to ApJ (Letters

Absolute velocity measurements in sunspot umbrae

In sunspot umbrae, convection is largely suppressed by the strong magnetic field. Previous measurements reported on negligible convective flows in umbral cores. Based on this, numerous studies have taken the umbra as zero reference to calculate Doppler velocities of the ambient active region. To clarify the amount of convective motion in the darkest part of umbrae, we directly measured Doppler velocities with an unprecedented accuracy and precision. We performed spectroscopic observations of sunspot umbrae with the Laser Absolute Reference Spectrograph (LARS) at the German Vacuum Tower Telescope. A laser frequency comb enabled the calibration of the high-resolution spectrograph and absolute wavelength positions. A thorough spectral calibration, including the measurement of the reference wavelength, yielded Doppler shifts of the spectral line Ti i 5713.9 {\AA} with an uncertainty of around 5 m s-1. The measured Doppler shifts are a composition of umbral convection and magneto-acoustic waves. For the analysis of convective shifts, we temporally average each sequence to reduce the superimposed wave signal. Compared to convective blueshifts of up to -350 m s-1 in the quiet Sun, sunspot umbrae yield a strongly reduced convective blueshifts around -30 m s-1. {W}e find that the velocity in a sunspot umbra correlates significantly with the magnetic field strength, but also with the umbral temperature defining the depth of the titanium line. The vertical upward motion decreases with increasing field strength. Extrapolating the linear approximation to zero magnetic field reproduces the measured quiet Sun blueshift. Simply taking the sunspot umbra as a zero velocity reference for the calculation of photospheric Dopplergrams can imply a systematic velocity error.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, Appendix with 5 figure

A Unified Scaling Law in Spiral Galaxies

We investigate the origin of a unified scaling relation in spiral galaxies. Observed spiral galaxies are spread on a plane in the three-dimensionallogarithmic space of luminosity L, radius R and rotation velocity V. The plane is expressed as $L \propto (V R)^{\alpha}$ in I-passband, where $\alpha$ is a constant. On the plane, observed galaxies are distributed in an elongated region which looks like the shape of a surfboard. The well-known scaling relations, L-V (Tully-Fisher relation), V-R (also the Tully-Fisher relation) and R-L (Freeman's law), can be understood as oblique projections of the surfboard-like plane into 2-D spaces. This unified interpretation of the known scaling relations should be a clue to understand the physical origin of all the relations consistently. Furthermore, this interpretation can also explain why previous studies could not find any correlation between TF residuals and radius. In order to clarify the origin of this plane, we simulate formation and evolution of spiral galaxies with the N-body/SPH method, including cooling, star formation and stellar feedback. Initial conditions are set to isolated 14 spheres with two free parameters, such as mass and angular momentum. The CDM (h=0.5, $\Omega_0=1$) cosmology is considered as a test case. The simulations provide the following two conclusions: (a) The slope of the plane is well reproduced but the zero-point is not. This zero-point discrepancy could be solved in a low density ($\Omega_00.5) cosmology. (b) The surfboard-shaped plane can be explained by the control of galactic mass and angular momentum.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. 6 pages including 2 figure

The influence of baryons on the mass distribution of dark matter halos

Using a set of high-resolution N-body/SPH cosmological simulations with identical initial conditions but run with different numerical setups, we investigate the influence of baryonic matter on the mass distribution of dark halos when radiative cooling is NOT included. We compare the concentration parameters of about 400 massive halos with virial mass from $10^{13}$ \Msun to $7.1 \times 10^{14}$ \Msun. We find that the concentration parameters for the total mass and dark matter distributions in non radiative simulations are on average larger by ~3% and 10% than those in a pure dark matter simulation. Our results indicate that the total mass density profile is little affected by a hot gas component in the simulations. After carefully excluding the effects of resolutions and spurious two-body heating between dark matter and gas particles, we conclude that the increase of the dark matter concentration parameters is due to interactions between baryons and dark matter. We demonstrate this with the aid of idealized simulations of two-body mergers. The results of individual halos simulated with different mass resolutions show that the gas profiles of densities, temperature and entropy are subjects of mass resolution of SPH particles. In particular, we find that in the inner parts of halos, as the SPH resolution increases the gas density becomes higher but both the entropy and temperature decrease.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, ApJ in press (v652n1); updated to match with the being published versio

The Effects of a Photoionizing UV Background on the Formation of Disk Galaxies

We use high resolution N-body/gasdynamical simulations to investigate the effects of a photoionizing UV background on the assembly of disk galaxies in hierarchically clustering universes. We focus on the mass and rotational properties of gas that can cool to form centrifugally supported disks in dark matter halos of different mass. Photoheating can significantly reduce the amount of gas that can cool in galactic halos. Depending on the strength of the UV background field, the amount of cooled gas can be reduced by up to $50\%$ in systems with circular speeds in the range $80$-$200$ \kms. The magnitude of the effect, however, is not enough to solve the ``overcooling'' problem that plagues hierarchical models of galaxy formation if the UV background is chosen to be consistent with estimates based on recent observations of QSO absorption systems. Photoionization has little effect on the collapse of gas at high redshift and affects preferentially gas that is accreted at late times. Since disks form inside-out, accreting higher angular momentum gas at later times, disks formed in the presence of a UV background have spins that are even smaller than those formed in simulations that do not include the effects of photoionization. This exacerbates the angular momentum problem that afflicts hierarchical models of disk formation. We conclude that photoionization cannot provide the heating mechanism required to reconcile hierarchically clustering models with observations. Energy feedback and enrichment processes from the formation and evolution of stars must therefore be indispensable ingredients for any successful model of the formation of disk galaxies.Comment: 36 pages, w/ embedded figures, submitted to ApJ. Also available at http://penedes.as.arizona.edu/~jfn/preprints/dskform.ps.g

Tolerância de genótipos de arroz irrigado ao frio nos estádios de germinação e emergência.

bitstream/item/37178/1/boletim-118.pd

Kinematics of Metal-Poor Stars in the Galaxy. III. Formation of the Stellar Halo and Thick Disk as Revealed from a Large Sample of Non-Kinematically Selected Stars

(Abbreviated) We present a detailed analysis of the space motions of 1203 solar-neighborhood stars with metal abundances [Fe/H] <= -0.6, on the basis of a recently revised and supplemented catalog of metal-poor stars selected without kinematic bias (Beers et al. 2000). This sample, having available proper motions, radial velocities, and distance estimates for stars with a wide range of metal abundances, is by far the largest such catalog to be assembled to date. Unlike essentially all previous kinematically selected catalogs, the metal-poor stars in our sample exhibit a diverse distribution of orbital eccentricities, e, with no apparent correlation between [Fe/H] and e. This demonstrates, clearly and convincingly, that the evidence offered by Eggen, Lynden-Bell, and Sandage (1962) for a rapid collapse of the Galaxy, an apparent correlation between the orbital eccentricity of halo stars with metallicity, is basically the result of their proper-motion selection bias. However, even in our non-kinematically selected sample, we have identified a small concentration of high-e stars at [Fe/H] = -1.7, which may originate, in part, from infalling gas during the early formation of the Galaxy. The implications of our results for the formation of the Galaxy are also discussed, in particular in the context of the currently favored CDM theory of hierarchical galaxy formation.Comment: 51 pages, including 17 figures, to appear in AJ (June 2000), full paper with all figures embedded available at http://pluto.mtk.nao.ac.jp/people/chiba/preprint/halo5

Star Formation in Isolated Disk Galaxies. I. Models and Characteristics of Nonlinear Gravitational Collapse

We model gravitational collapse leading to star formation in a wide range of isolated disk galaxies using a three-dimensional, smoothed particle hydrodynamics code. The model galaxies include a dark matter halo and a disk of stars and isothermal gas. Absorbing sink particles are used to directly measure the mass of gravitationally collapsing gas. They reach masses characteristic of stellar clusters. In this paper, we describe our galaxy models and numerical methods, followed by an investigation of the gravitational instability in these galaxies. Gravitational collapse forms star clusters with correlated positions and ages, as observed, for example, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Gravitational instability alone acting in unperturbed galaxies appears sufficient to produce flocculent spiral arms, though not more organized patterns. Unstable galaxies show collapse in thin layers in the galactic plane; associated dust will form thin dust lanes in those galaxies, in agreement with observations. (abridged)Comment: 49 pages, 22 figures, to appear in ApJ (July, 2005), version with high quality color images can be fond in http://research.amnh.org/~yuexing/astro-ph/0501022.pd