The central spheroids of Milky Way mass-sized galaxies

Indexación: Scopus.PBT, DM and AM acknowledge partial support from the Nucleo UNAB 2015 DI-677-15/N of Universidad Andres Bello. PBT acknowledges partial support from Fondecyt Regular 1150334 and the Southern Astrophysics Network (SAN) collaboration funded by Conicyt, and PICT 2011-0959 and PIP 2012-0396 (Mincyt, Argentina). DM and MZ are supported by the BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies (CATA) through grant PFB-06, and the Ministry for the Economy, Development, and Tourism, Programa Iniciativa Cientifica Milenio through grant IC120009, awarded to the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS), and by FONDECYT Regular grant No. 1130196. DC and TCB acknowledge partial support for this work from grant PHY 14-30152; Physics Frontier Center/JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE), awarded by the US National Science Foundation. REGM acknowledges support from Ci?ncia sem Fronteiras (CNPq, Brazil).We study the properties of the central spheroids located within 10 kpc of the centre of mass of MilkyWay mass-sized galaxies simulated in a cosmological context. The simulated central regions are dominated by stars older than 10 Gyr, mostly formed in situ, with a contribution of ~30 per cent from accreted stars. These stars formed in well-defined starbursts, although accreted stars exhibit sharper and earlier ones. The fraction of accreted stars increases with galactocentric distance, so that at a radius of~8-10 kpc, a fraction of~40 per cent, on average, is detected. Accreted stars are slightly younger, lower metallicity, and more α-enhanced than in situ stars. A significant fraction of old stars in the central regions come from a few (2-3) massive satellites (~1010M⊙). The bulge components receive larger contributions of accreted stars formed in dwarfs smaller than ~109.5M⊙. The difference between the distributions of ages and metallicities of old stars is thus linked to the accretion histories - those central regions with a larger fraction of accreted stars are those with contributions from more massive satellites. The kinematical properties of in situ and accreted stars are consistent with the latter being supported by their velocity dispersions, while the former exhibit clear signatures of rotational support. Our simulations demonstrate a range of characteristics, with some systems exhibiting a co-existing bar and spheroid in their central regions, resembling in some respect the central region of the Milky Way. © 2016 The Authors.https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/473/2/1656/422260

Non-parametric morphologies of galaxies in the EAGLE simulation

Galaxie

Interacting dark matter contribution to the Galactic 511 keV gamma ray emission: constraining the morphology with INTEGRAL/SPI observations

We compare the full-sky morphology of the 511 keV gamma ray excess measured by the INTEGRAL/SPI experiment to predictions of models based on dark matter (DM) scatterings that produce low-energy positrons: either MeV-scale DM that annihilates directly into e+e- pairs, or heavy DM that inelastically scatters into an excited state (XDM) followed by decay into e+e- and the ground state.By direct comparison to the data, we find that such explanations are consistent with dark matter halo profiles predicted by numerical many-body simulations for a Milky Way-like galaxy. Our results favor an Einasto profile over the cuspier NFW distribution and exclude decaying dark matter scenarios whose predicted spatial distribution is too broad. We obtain a good fit to the shape of the signal using six fewer degrees of freedom than previous empirical fits to the 511 keV data. We find that the ratio of flux at Earth from the galactic bulge to that of the disk is between 1.9 and 2.4, taking into account that 73% of the disk contribution may be attributed to the beta decay of radioactive 26Al.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Includes minor corrections, and a discussion of threshold energies in XDM models. Published in JCA

A recent rebuilding of most spirals ?

Re-examination of the properties of distant galaxies leads to the evidence that most present-day spirals have built up half of their stellar masses during the last 8 Gyr, mostly during several intense phases of star formation during which they took the appearance of luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs). Distant galaxy morphologies encompass all of the expected stages of galaxy merging, central core formation and disk growth, while their cores are much bluer than those of present-day bulges. We have tested a spiral rebuilding scenario, for which 75+/-25% of spirals have experienced their last major merger event less than 8 Gyr ago. It accounts for the simultaneous decreases, during that period, of the cosmic star formation density, of the merger rate, of the number densities of LIRGs and of compact galaxies, while the densities of ellipticals and large spirals are essentially unaffected.Comment: (1) GEPI, Obs. Meudon, France ;(2)Max-Planck Institut fuer Astronomie, Germany (3) National Astronomical Observatories, CAS, China. Five pages, 1 figure. To be published in "Starbursts: From 30 Doradus to Lyman Break Galaxies", held in Cambridge, ed. R. de Grijs & R. M. Gonzalez Delgado (Dordrecht: Kluwer

PPPC 4 DM ID: A Poor Particle Physicist Cookbook for Dark Matter Indirect Detection

We provide ingredients and recipes for computing signals of TeV-scale Dark Matter annihilations and decays in the Galaxy and beyond. For each DM channel, we present the energy spectra of electrons and positrons, antiprotons, antideuterons, gamma rays, neutrinos and antineutrinos e, mu, tau at production, computed by high-statistics simulations. We estimate the Monte Carlo uncertainty by comparing the results yielded by the Pythia and Herwig event generators. We then provide the propagation functions for charged particles in the Galaxy, for several DM distribution profiles and sets of propagation parameters. Propagation of electrons and positrons is performed with an improved semi-analytic method that takes into account position-dependent energy losses in the Milky Way. Using such propagation functions, we compute the energy spectra of electrons and positrons, antiprotons and antideuterons at the location of the Earth. We then present the gamma ray fluxes, both from prompt emission and from Inverse Compton scattering in the galactic halo. Finally, we provide the spectra of extragalactic gamma rays. All results are available in numerical form and ready to be consumed.Comment: 57 pages with many figures and tables. v4: updated to include a 125 higgs boson, computation and discussion of extragalactic spectra corrected, some other typos fixed; all these corrections and updates are reflected on the numerical ingredients available at http://www.marcocirelli.net/PPPC4DMID.html they correspond to Release 2.

Chemical evolution in hierarchical scenarios

We studied the chemical properties of Milky-Way mass galaxies. We found common global chemical patterns with particularities which reflect their different assembly histories in a hierarchical scenario. We carried out a comprehensively analysis of the dynamical components (central spheroid, disc, inner and outer haloes) and their chemical properties

Mild evolution of the stellar metallicity gradients of disc galaxies

The metallicity gradients of the stellar populations in disc galaxies and their evolution store relevant information on the disc formation history and on those processes which could mix stars a posteriori, such as migration, bars and/or galaxy-galaxy interactions. Aims. We aim to investigate the evolution of the metallicity gradients of the whole stellar populations in disc components of simulated galaxies in a cosmological context. Methods. We analyse simulated disc galaxies selected from a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation that includes chemical evolution and a physically motivated supernova feedback capable of driving mass-loaded galactic winds. Results. We detect a mild evolution with redshift in the metallicity slopes of-0.02 ± 0.01 dex kpc-1 from z ~ 1. If the metallicity profiles are normalised by the effective radius of the stellar disc, the slopes show no clear evolution for z< 1, with a median value of approximately-0.23 dex reff -1. As a function of stellar mass, we find that metallicity gradients steepen for stellar masses smaller than ~1010.3M· while the trend reverses for higher stellar masses, in the redshift range z = [0,1]. Galaxies with small stellar masses have discs with larger reff and flatter metallicity gradients than expected. We detect migration albeit weaker than in previous works. Conclusions. Our stellar discs show a mild evolution of the stellar metallicity slopes up to z ~ 1, which is well-matched by the evolution calculated archeologically from the abundance distributions of mono-age stellar populations at z ~ 0. The dispersion in the relations allows for stronger individual evolutions. Overall, supernova feedback could explain the trends but an impact of migration can not be totally discarded. Galaxy-galaxy interactions or small satellite accretions can also contribute to modify the metallicity profiles in the outer parts. Disentangling the effects of these processes for individual galaxies is still a challenge in a cosmological context. © 2017 ESO.This work was partially supported by PICT 2011-0959 and PIP 2012-0396 (Mincyt, Argentina). P.B.T. acknowledges partial support from the Nucleo UNAB 2015 DI-677 of Universidad Andres Bello and Fondecyt 1150334 and the Southern Astrophysics Network (SAN) collaboration funded by Conicyt. R.E.G.M. acknowledges support from Ciencia sem Fronteiras (CNPq, Brazil). P.S.B. acknowledges financial support from the: CONICYT-Chile Basal-CATA PFB-06/2007 and the AYA2013-48226-C3-1-P by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion. J.M.V. acknowledges financial support from AYA2013-47742-C4-1-P by the Spanish MINECO.Peer Reviewe

The oxygen abundance gradients in the gas discs of galaxies in the EAGLE simulation

We use the EAGLE simulations to study the oxygen abundance gradients of gas discs in galaxies within the stellar mass range [109.5, 1010.8] ∼ M⊙ at z = 0. The estimated median oxygen gradient is −0.011 ± 0.002 dex kpc−1, which is shallower than observed. No clear trend between simulated disc oxygen gradient and galaxy stellar mass is found when all galaxies are considered. However, the oxygen gradient shows a clear correlation with gas disc size so that shallower abundance slopes are found for increasing gas disc sizes. Positive oxygen gradients are detected for ≈40 per cent of the analysed gas discs, with a slight higher frequency in low-mass galaxies. Galaxies that have quiet merger histories show a positive correlation between oxygen gradient and stellar mass, so that more massive galaxies tend to have shallower metallicity gradients. At high stellar mass, there is a larger fraction of rotational-dominated galaxies in low-density regions. At low stellar mass, non-merger galaxies show a large variety of oxygen gradients and morphologies. The normalization of the disc oxygen gradients in non-merger galaxies by the effective radius removes the trend with stellar mass. Conversely, galaxies that experienced mergers show a weak relation between oxygen gradient and stellar mass. Additionally, the analysed EAGLE discs show no clear dependence of the oxygen gradients on local environment, in agreement with current observational findings