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We present a high-resolution numerical study of the sinking and merging of massive black holes (MBHs) with masses in the range of |$10^3 - 10^7 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$| in multiple minor mergers of low-mass dark matter haloes without and with galaxies (⁠|$4\times 10^8 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot \lesssim {M}_{\mathrm{halo}} \lesssim 2\times 10^{10} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot)$|⁠. The ketju simulation code, a combination of the gadget tree solver with accurate regularized integration, uses unsoftened forces between the star/dark matter components and the MBHs for an accurate treatment of dynamical friction and scattering of dark matter/stars by MBH binaries or multiples. Post-Newtonian corrections up to order 3.5 for MBH interactions allow for coalescence by gravitational wave emission and gravitational recoil kicks. Low-mass MBHs (⁠|$\lesssim 10^5 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$|⁠) hardly sink to the centre or merge. Sinking MBHs have various complex evolution paths – binaries, triplets, free-floating MBHs, and dynamically or recoil ejected MBHs. Collisional interactions with dark matter alone can drive MBHs to coalescence. The highest mass MBHs of |$\gtrsim 10^6 \, \rm M_\odot$| mostly sink to the centre and trigger the scouring of dark matter and stellar cores. The scouring can transform a centrally baryon-dominated system into a dark-matter-dominated system. Our idealized high-resolution study highlights the difficulty to bring in and keep low-mass MBHs in the centres of low-mass haloes/galaxies – a remaining challenge for merger assisted MBH seed growth mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observations and high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations indicate that massive star clusters assemble hierarchically from subclusters with a universal power-law cluster mass function. We study the consequences of such assembly for the formation of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) at low metallicities (Z  = 0.01 Z⊙) with our updated N -body code bifrost based on the hierarchical fourth-order forward integrator. bifrost integrates few-body systems using secular and regularized techniques including post-Newtonian equations of motion up to order PN3.5 and gravitational-wave recoil kicks for BHs. Single stellar evolution is treated using the fast population synthesis code sevn. We evolve three cluster assembly regions with N tot = 1.70–2.35 × 106 stars following a realistic IMF in ∼1000 subclusters for t  = 50 Myr. IMBHs with masses up to m • ∼ 2200 M⊙ form rapidly mainly via the collapse of very massive stars (VMSs) assembled through repeated collisions of massive stars followed by growth through tidal disruption events and BH mergers. No IMBHs originate from the stars in the initially most massive clusters. We explain this by suppression of hard massive star binary formation at high velocity dispersions and the competition between core collapse and massive star lifetimes. Later the IMBHs form subsystems resulting in gravitational-wave BH–BH, IMBH–BH, and IMBH–IMBH mergers with a m • ∼ 1000 M⊙ gravitational-wave detection being the observable prediction. Our simulations indicate that the hierarchical formation of massive star clusters in metal poor environments naturally results in formation of potential seeds for supermassive black holes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study of the 'Resolving supermAssive Black hole Binaries In galacTic hydrodynamical Simulations' (RABBITS) series, we investigate the orbital evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) during galaxy mergers. We simulate both disc and elliptical galaxy mergers using the ketju code, which can simultaneously follow galaxy (hydro-)dynamics and small-scale SMBH dynamics with post-Newtonian corrections. With our SMBH binary subgrid model, we show how active galactic nuclei (AGNs) feedback affects galaxy properties and SMBH coalescence. We find that simulations without AGN feedback exhibit excessive star formation, resulting in merger remnants that deviate from observed properties. Kinetic AGN feedback proves more effective than thermal AGN feedback in expelling gas from the centre and quenching star formation. The different central galaxy properties, which are a result of distinct AGN feedback models, lead to varying rates of SMBH orbital decay. In the dynamical friction phase, galaxies with higher star formation and higher SMBH masses possess denser centres, become more resistant to tidal stripping, experience greater dynamical friction, and consequently form SMBH binaries earlier. As AGN feedback reduces gas densities in the centres, dynamical friction by stars dominates over gas. In the SMBH hardening phase, compared to elliptical mergers, disc mergers exhibit higher central densities of newly formed stars, resulting in accelerated SMBH hardening and shorter merger time-scales (i.e. |$\lesssim 500$| Myr versus |$\gtrsim 1$| Gyr). Our findings highlight the importance of AGN feedback and its numerical implementation in understanding the SMBH coalescing process, a key focus for low-frequency gravitational wave observatories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stellar winds of massive (⁠|$\gtrsim 9\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$|⁠) and very massive (⁠|$\gtrsim 100\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$|⁠) stars may play an important role in the metal-enrichment during the formation of star clusters. With novel high-resolution hydrodynamical griffin -project simulations, we investigate the rapid recycling of stellar wind-material during the formation of massive star clusters up to |$M_\mathrm{cluster}\sim 2\times 10^5\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$| in a low-metallicity dwarf galaxy starburst. The simulation realizes new stars from a stellar initial mass function (IMF) between |$0.08$| and |$\sim 400\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$| and follows stellar winds, radiation and supernova-feedback of single massive stars with evolution tracks. Star clusters form on time-scales less than ∼5 Myr, and their supernova-material is very inefficiently recycled. Stellar wind-material, however, is trapped in massive clusters resulting in the formation of stars self-enriched in Na, Al, and N within only a few Myr. Wind-enriched (second population, 2P) stars can be centrally concentrated in the most massive clusters (⁠|$\gtrsim 10^4\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$|⁠) and the locked wind-material increases approximately as |$M_\mathrm{cluster}^{2}$|⁠. These trends resemble the characteristics of observed 2P stars in globular clusters (GCs). We fit scaling relations to the lognormal distributed wind-mass fractions and extrapolate to possible GC progenitors of |$M_\mathrm{cluster}=10^7\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$| to investigate whether a dominant 2P could form. This can only happen if the IMF is well-sampled, single massive stars produce at least a factor of a few more enriched winds, for example, through a top-heavy IMF, and a significant fraction of the first population (unenriched) stars is lost during cluster evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study of the 'Resolving supermAssive Black hole Binaries In galacTic hydrodynamical Simulations' (RABBITS) series, we focus on the hardening and coalescing process of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries in galaxy mergers. For simulations including different galaxy formation processes (i.e. gas cooling, star formation, SMBH accretion, stellar, and AGN feedback), we systematically control the effect of stochastic eccentricity by fixing it to similar values during the SMBH hardening phase. We find a strong correlation between the SMBH merger time-scales and the presence of nuclear star formation. Throughout the galaxy merging process, gas condenses at the centre due to cooling and tidal torques, leading to nuclear star formation. These recently formed stars, which inherit low angular momenta from the gas, contribute to the loss cone and assist in the SMBH hardening via three-body interactions. Compared to non-radiative hydrodynamical runs, the SMBH merger time-scales measured from the runs including cooling, stellar, and SMBH physical processes tend to be shortened by a factor of ∼1.7. After fixing the eccentricity to the range of e ∼ 0.6–0.8 during the hardening phase, the simulations with AGN feedback reveal merger time-scales of ∼100–500 Myr for disc mergers and ∼1–2 Gyr for elliptical mergers. With a semi-analytical approach, we find that the torque interaction between the binary and its circumbinary disc has minimal impact on the shrinking of the binary orbit in our retrograde galaxy merger. Our results are useful in improving the modelling of SMBH merger time-scales and gravitational-wave event rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compact binary mergers forming in star clusters may exhibit distinctive features that can be used to identify them among observed gravitational-wave sources. Such features likely depend on the host cluster structure and the physics of massive star evolution. Here, we dissect the population of compact binary mergers in the dragon-II simulation data base, a suite of 19 direct N -body models representing dense star clusters with up to 106 stars and |$\lt 33~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| of stars in primordial binaries. We find a substantial population of black hole binary (BBH) mergers, some of them involving an intermediate-mass BH (IMBH), and a handful mergers involving a stellar BH and either a neutron star (NS) or a white dwarf (WD). Primordial binary mergers, |$\sim 30~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| of the whole population, dominate ejected mergers. Dynamical mergers, instead, dominate the population of in-cluster mergers and are systematically heavier than primordial ones. Around 20 per cent of dragon-II mergers are eccentric in the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) band and 5 per cent in the LIGO band. We infer a mean cosmic merger rate of |$\mathcal {R}\sim 30(4.4)(1.2)$| yr−1 Gpc−3 for BBHs, NS–BH, and WD–BH binary mergers, respectively, and discuss the prospects for multimessenger detection of WD–BH binaries with LISA. We model the rate of pair-instability supernovae (PISNe) in star clusters and find that surveys with a limiting magnitude m bol = 25 can detect ∼1–15 yr−1 PISNe. Comparing these estimates with future observations could help to pin down the impact of massive star evolution on the mass spectrum of compact stellar objects in star clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the 10 Myr evolution of parsec-scale stellar discs with initial masses of M disc = 1.0– |$7.5 \times 10^4\, \mathrm{M}_\odot$| and eccentricities e init = 0.1–0.9 around supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Our disc models are embedded in a spherical background potential and have top-heavy single and binary star initial mass functions (IMF) with slopes of 0.25–1.7. The systems are evolved with the N -body code BIFROST , including post-Newtonian (PN) equations of motion and simplified stellar evolution. All discs are unstable and evolve on Myr time-scales towards similar eccentricity distributions peaking at e ⋆ ∼ 0.3–0.4. Models with high e init also develop a very eccentric (e ⋆ ≳ 0.9) stellar population. For higher disc masses M disc ≳ 3 × 104 M⊙, the disc disruption dynamics is more complex than the standard secular eccentric disc instability with opposite precession directions at different disc radii – a precession direction instability. We present an analytical model describing this behaviour. A milliparsec population of N ∼ 10–100 stars forms around the SMBH in all models. For low e init, stars migrate inward while for e init ≳ 0.6 stars are captured by the Hills mechanism. Without PN, after 6 Myr, the captured stars have a sub-thermal eccentricity distribution. We show that including PN effects prevents this thermalization by suppressing resonant relaxation effects and cannot be ignored. The number of tidally disrupted stars is similar or larger than the number of milliparsec stars. None of the simulated models can simultaneously reproduce the kinematic and stellar population properties of the Milky Way centre clockwise disc and the S-cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the detection of cold dust in an apparently quiescent massive galaxy (log (M ⋆/M⊙) ≈ 11) at z ∼ 2 (G4). The source is identified as a serendipitous 2 mm continuum source in a deep ALMA observation within the field of Q2343-BX610, a z  = 2.21 massive star-forming disc galaxy. Available multiband photometry of G4 suggests redshift of z ∼ 2 and a low specific star formation rate (sSFR), log (SFR/ M ⋆)[yr−1] ≈ −10.2, corresponding to ≈1.2 dex below the z  = 2 main sequence (MS). G4 appears to be a peculiar dust-rich quiescent galaxy for its stellar mass (log (M dust/ M ⋆) = −2.71 ± 0.26), with its estimated mass-weighted age (∼1–2 Gyr). We compile z ≳ 1 quiescent galaxies in the literature and discuss their age–ΔMS and log (M dust/ M ⋆)–age relations to investigate passive evolution and dust depletion scale. A long dust depletion time and its morphology suggest morphological quenching along with less efficient feedback that could have acted on G4. The estimated dust yield for G4 further supports this idea, requiring efficient survival of dust and/or grain growth, and rejuvenation (or additional accretion). Follow-up observations probing the stellar light and cold dust peak are necessary to understand the implication of these findings in the broader context of galaxy evolutionary studies and quenching in the early universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse a suite of 29 high-resolution zoom-in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of massive galaxies with stellar masses |$M_{\rm star} \gt 10^{10.9} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$|⁠ , with the goal of better understanding merger activity among active galactic nuclei (AGN), AGN activity in merging systems, SMBH growth during mergers, and the role of gas content in triggering AGN. Using the radiative transfer code Powderday , we generate HST -WFC3 F160W mock observations of central galaxies at redshift 0.5 < z < 3; convolve each image with a CANDELS-like point spread function; stitch each image into a real CANDELS image; and identify mergers within the synthetic images using commonly adopted non-parametric statistics. We study the connection between mergers and AGN activity in both the simulations and synthetic images and find reasonable agreement with observations from CANDELS. We find that AGN activity is not primarily driven by major mergers (stellar mass ratio > 1:4) except in a select few cases of gas-rich mergers at low redshifts (0.5 < z < 0.9). We also find that major mergers do not significantly grow the central SMBHs, indicating major mergers do not sustain long-term accretion. Moreover, the most luminous AGN in our simulations (L bol > 1045 erg s−1) are no more likely than inactive galaxies (L bol < 1043 erg s−1) to be found in merging systems. We conclude that mergers are not the primary drivers of AGN activity in the simulated massive galaxies studied here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare ionized gas and stellar kinematics of 16 star-forming galaxies (log (M ⋆/ M ⊙) = 9.7–11.2, SFR =6 − 86 M⊙ yr−1) at z ∼ 1 using near-infrared integral field spectroscopy (IFS) of Hα emission from the KMOS3D (the K-band Multi-Object Spectrograph 3D) survey and optical slit spectroscopy of stellar absorption and gas emission from the LEGA-C (Large Early Galaxy Astrophysics Census) survey. Hα is dynamically colder than stars, with higher disc rotation velocities (by ∼45 per cent) and lower disc velocity dispersions (by a factor ∼2). This is similar to trends observed in the local Universe. We find higher rotational support for Hα relative to [O  ii ], potentially explaining systematic offsets in kinematic scaling relations found in the literature. Regarding dynamical mass measurements, for six galaxies with cumulative mass profiles from Jeans Anisotropic Multi-Gaussian Expansion (JAM) models the Hα dynamical mass models agree remarkably well out to ∼10 kpc for all but one galaxy (average |$\Delta M_{\rm dyn}(R_{e,\rm F814W})\lt 0.1$| dex). Simpler dynamical mass estimates based on integrated stellar velocity dispersion are less accurate (standard deviation 0.24 dex). Differences in dynamical mass estimates are larger, for example, for galaxies with stronger misalignments of the Hα kinematic major axis and the photometric position angle, highlighting the added value of IFS observations for dynamics studies. The good agreement between the JAM and the dynamical models based on Hα kinematics at z ∼ 1 corroborates the validity of dynamical mass measurements from Hα IFS observations, which can be more easily obtained for higher redshift galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary eccentricity of equal-mass galaxy mergers in N -body simulations with the ketju code, which combines the gadget-4 fast multipole gravity solver with accurate regularized integration and post-Newtonian corrections around SMBHs. In simulations with realistic, high-eccentricity galactic merger orbits, the hard binary eccentricity is found to be a non-linear function of the deflection angle in the SMBH orbit during the final, nearly radial close encounter between the SMBHs before they form a bound binary. This mapping between the deflection angle and the binary eccentricity has no apparent resolution dependence in our simulations spanning the resolution range of 1 × 105 to 8 × 106 particles per galaxy. The mapping is also captured using a simple model with an analytical potential, indicating that it is driven by the interplay between a smooth asymmetric stellar background potential and dynamical friction acting on the SMBHs. Due to the non-linearity of this mapping, in eccentric major merger configurations, small, parsec-scale variations in the merger orbit can result in binary eccentricities varying in nearly the full possible range between e  = 0 and e  = 1. In idealized simulations, such variations are caused by finite resolution effects, and convergence of the binary eccentricity can be achieved with increasing resolution. However, in real galaxies, other mechanisms such as nuclear gas and substructure that perturb the merger orbit are likely to be significant enough for the binary eccentricity to be effectively random. Our results indicate that the distribution of these effectively random eccentricities can be studied using even moderate resolution simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the new public version of the ketju supermassive black hole (SMBH) dynamics module, as implemented into gadget-4. ketju adds a small region around each SMBH where the dynamics of the SMBHs and stellar particles are integrated using an algorithmically regularized integrator instead of the leapfrog integrator with gravitational softening used by gadget-4. This enables modelling SMBHs as point particles even during close interactions with stellar particles or other SMBHs, effectively removing the spatial resolution limitation caused by gravitational softening. ketju also includes post-Newtonian (PN) corrections, which allows following the dynamics of SMBH binaries to sub-parsec scales and down to tens of Schwarzschild radii. Systems with multiple SMBHs are also supported, with the code also including the leading non-linear cross terms that appear in the PN equations for such systems. We present tests of the code showing that it correctly captures, at sufficient mass resolution, the sinking driven by dynamical friction and binary hardening driven by stellar scattering. We also present an example application demonstrating how the code can be applied to study the dynamics of SMBHs in mergers of multiple galaxies and the effect they have on the properties of the surrounding galaxy. We expect that the presented ketju SMBH dynamics module can also be straightforwardly incorporated into other codes similar to gadget-4 , which would allow coupling small-scale SMBH dynamics to the rich variety of galactic physics models that exist in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supernovae (SNe) inject ∼1051 erg in the interstellar medium, thereby shocking and heating the gas. A substantial fraction of this energy is later lost via radiative cooling. We present a post-processing module for the flash code to calculate the cooling radiation from shock-heated gas using collisional excitation data from mappings v. When applying this tool to a simulated SN remnant (SNR), we find that most energy is emitted in the EUV. However, optical emission lines ([O iii ], [N ii ], [S ii ], H α, H β) are usually best observable. Our shock detection scheme shows that [S ii ] and [N ii ] emissions arise from the thin shell surrounding the SNR, while [O iii ], H  |$\rm \alpha$|⁠ , and H  |$\rm \beta$| originate from the volume-filling hot gas inside the SNR bubble. We find that the optical emission lines are affected by the SNR's complex structure and its projection on to the plane of the sky because the escaping line luminosity can be reduced by 10–80 per cent due to absorption along the line of sight. Additionally, the subtraction of contaminating background radiation is required for the correct classification of an SNR on the oxygen or sulphur BPT diagrams. The electron temperature and density obtained from our synthetic observations match well with the simulation but are very sensitive to the assumed metallicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present BIFROST , an extended version of the GPU-accelerated hierarchical fourth-order forward symplectic integrator code FROST. BIFROST (BI naries in FROST) can efficiently evolve collisional stellar systems with arbitrary binary fractions up to |$f_\mathrm{bin}=100~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| by using secular and regularized integration for binaries, triples, multiple systems, or small clusters around black holes within the fourth-order forward integrator framework. Post-Newtonian (PN) terms up to order PN3.5 are included in the equations of motion of compact subsystems with optional three-body and spin-dependent terms. PN1.0 terms for interactions with black holes are computed everywhere in the simulation domain. The code has several merger criteria (gravitational-wave inspirals, tidal disruption events, and stellar and compact object collisions) with the addition of relativistic recoil kicks for compact object mergers. We show that for systems with N particles the scaling of the code remains good up to N GPU ∼ 40 × N /106 GPUs and that the increasing binary fractions up to 100 per cent hardly increase the code running time (less than a factor ∼1.5). We also validate the numerical accuracy of BIFROST by presenting a number of star clusters simulations the most extreme ones including a core collapse and a merger of two intermediate mass black holes with a relativistic recoil kick. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present new griffin project hydrodynamical simulations that model the formation of galactic star cluster populations in low-metallicity (Z = 0.00021) dwarf galaxies, including radiation, supernova, and stellar wind feedback of individual massive stars. In the simulations, stars are sampled from the stellar initial mass function (IMF) down to the hydrogen-burning limit of 0.08 M⊙. Mass conservation is enforced within a radius of 1 pc for the formation of massive stars. We find that massive stars are preferentially found in star clusters and follow a correlation set at birth between the highest initial stellar mass and the star cluster mass that differs from pure stochastic IMF sampling. With a fully sampled IMF, star clusters lose mass in the galactic tidal field according to mass-loss rates observed in nearby galaxies. Of the released stellar feedback, 60 per cent of the supernova material and up to 35 per cent of the wind material reside either in the hot interstellar medium (ISM) or in gaseous, metal-enriched outflows. While stellar winds (instantaneously) and supernovae (delayed) start enriching the ISM right after the first massive stars form, the formation of supernova-enriched stars and star clusters is significantly delayed (by >50 Myr) compared to the formation of stars and star clusters enriched by stellar winds. Overall, supernova ejecta dominate the enrichment by mass, while the number of enriched stars is determined by continuous stellar winds. These results present a concept for the formation of chemically distinct populations of stars in bound star clusters, reminiscent of multiple populations in globular clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the star-forming multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) in stratified galactic patches with gas surface densities Σgas = 10, 30, 50, and 100 |$\mathrm{M_\odot \, pc^{-2}}$|⁠. The silcc project simulation framework accounts for non-equilibrium thermal and chemical processes in the warm and cold ISM. The sink-based star formation and feedback model includes stellar winds, hydrogen-ionizing UV radiation, core-collapse supernovae, and cosmic ray (CR) injection and diffusion. The simulations follow the observed relation between Σgas and the star formation rate surface density ΣSFR. CRs qualitatively change the outflow phase structure. Without CRs, the outflows transition from a two-phase (warm and hot at 1 kpc) to a single-phase (hot at 2 kpc) structure. With CRs, the outflow always has three phases (cold, warm, and hot), dominated in mass by the warm phase. The impact of CRs on mass loading decreases for higher Σgas and the mass loading factors of the CR-supported outflows are of order unity independent of ΣSFR. Similar to observations, vertical velocity dispersions of the warm ionized medium (WIM) and the cold neutral medium (CNM) correlate with the star formation rate as |$\sigma _\mathrm{z} \propto \Sigma _\mathrm{SFR}^a$|⁠ , with a ∼ 0.20. In the absence of stellar feedback, we find no correlation. The velocity dispersion of the WIM is a factor ∼2.2 higher than that of the CNM, in agreement with local observations. For |$\Sigma _\mathrm{SFR} \gtrsim 1.5 \times 10^{-2}\, \mathrm{M}_\odot \, \mathrm{yr}^{-1}\, \mathrm{kpc}^{-2}$| the WIM motions become supersonic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present N -body simulations, including post-Newtonian dynamics, of dense clusters of low-mass stars harbouring central black holes (BHs) with initial masses of 50, 300, and 2000 M⊙. The models are evolved with the N -body code bifrost to investigate the possible formation and growth of massive BHs by the tidal capture of stars and tidal disruption events (TDEs). We model star–BH tidal interactions using a velocity-dependent drag force, which causes orbital energy and angular momentum loss near the BH. About ∼20–30 per cent of the stars within the spheres of influence of the black holes form Bahcall–Wolf cusps and prevent the systems from core collapse. Within the first 40 Myr of evolution, the systems experience 500–1300 TDEs, depending on the initial cluster structure. Most (>95 per cent) of the TDEs originate from stars in the Bahcall–Wolf cusp. We derive an analytical formula for the TDE rate as a function of the central BH mass, density, and velocity dispersion of the clusters (⁠|$\dot{N}_{\mathrm{TDE}} \propto M\mathrm{_{BH}}\rho \sigma ^{-3}$|⁠). We find that TDEs can lead a 300 M⊙ BH to reach |$\sim 7000 \, \mathrm{{M}_{\odot }}$| within a Gyr. This indicates that TDEs can drive the formation and growth of massive BHs in sufficiently dense environments, which might be present in the central regions of nuclear star clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the primary goals when studying galaxy formation is to understand how the luminous component of the Universe, galaxies, relate to the growth of structure which is dominated by the gravitational collapse of dark matter haloes. The stellar-to-halo mass relation probes how galaxies occupy dark matter haloes and what that entails for their star formation history. We deliver the first self-consistent empirical model that can place constraints on the stellar-to-halo mass relation down to log stellar mass log10(m */M⊙) ≤ 5.0 by fitting our model directly to Local Group dwarf data. This is accomplished by penalizing galaxy growth in late-forming, low-mass haloes by mimicking the effects of reionization. This process serves to regulate the number density of galaxies by altering the scatter in halo peak mass |$M^{\mathrm{peak}}_{h}$| at fixed stellar mass, creating a tighter scatter than would otherwise exist without a high- z quenching mechanism. Our results indicate that the previously established double-power law stellar-to-halo mass relation can be extended to include galaxies with |$\log _{10}(M^{\mathrm{peak}}_{\mathrm{h}}/{\rm M}_{\odot })\gtrsim 10.0$|⁠. Furthermore, we show that haloes with |$\log _{10}(M^{\mathrm{peak}}_{\mathrm{h}}/{\rm M}_{\odot })\lesssim 9.3$| by z = 4 are unlikely to host a galaxy with log10(m */M⊙) > 5.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a photometric analysis of star and star cluster (SC) formation in a high-resolution simulation of a dwarf galaxy starburst that allows the formation of individual stars to be followed. Previous work demonstrated that the properties of the SCs formed in the simulation are in good agreement with observations. In this paper, we create mock spectral energy distributions and broad-band photometric images using the radiative transfer code skirt 9. We test several observational star formation rate (SFR) tracers and find that 24  |$\mu$| m, total infrared and Hα trace the underlying SFR during the (post)starburst phase, while UV tracers yield a more accurate picture of star formation during quiescent phases prior to and after the merger. We then place the simulated galaxy at distances of 10 and 50 Mpc and use aperture photometry at Hubble Space Telescope resolution to analyse the simulated SC population. During the starburst phase, a hierarchically forming set of SCs leads inaccurate source separation because of crowding. This results in estimated SC mass function slopes that are up to ∼0.3 shallower than the true slope of ∼−1.9 to −2 found for the bound clusters identified from the particle data in the simulation. The masses of the largest clusters are overestimated by a factor of up to 2.9 due to unresolved clusters within the apertures. The aperture-based analysis also produces a relation between cluster formation efficiency and SFR surface density that is slightly flatter than that recovered from bound clusters. The differences are strongest in quiescent SF environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the simulation of a |$2\times 10^{9}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$| halo mass cosmological dwarf galaxy run to z = 0 at 4 solar mass gas resolution with resolved supernova feedback. We compare three simple subgrid implementations for the inhomogeneous chemical enrichment from Population III stars and compare them to constraints from Local Group dwarf galaxies. The employed model, LYRA, is a novel high-resolution galaxy formation model built for the moving mesh code arepo , which is marked by a resolved multiphase interstellar medium, single stars, and individual supernova events. The resulting reionization relic is characterized by a short (<1.5 Gyr) star formation history that is repeatedly brought to a standstill by violent bursts of feedback. Star formation is reignited for a short duration due to a merger at z ≈ 4 and then again at z ≈ 0.2−0 after sustained gas accretion. Our model z = 0 galaxy matches the stellar mass, size, stellar kinematics, and metallicity relations of Local Group dwarf galaxies well. The dark matter profile does not exhibit a core in any version of the model. We show that the host halo masses of Population III stars affect the assembly history of dwarf galaxies. This manifests itself through the initial gaseous collapse in the progenitor haloes, affecting the central density of the stellar component and through the accretion of luminous substructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present direct N -body simulations, carried out with nbody6+ + gpu , of young and compact low-metallicity (Z  = 0.0002) star clusters with 1.1 × 105 stars, a velocity dispersion of ∼15 |$\mathrm{km\, s^{-1}}$|⁠ , a half-mass radius R h = 0.6 pc, and a binary fraction of |$10{{\ \rm per\,cent}}$| including updated evolution models for stellar winds and (pulsation) pair-instability supernovae (PSNe). Within the first tens of megayears, each cluster hosts several black hole (BH) merger events which nearly cover the complete mass range of primary and secondary BH masses for current LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA gravitational wave detections. The importance of gravitational recoil is estimated statistically during post-processing analysis. We present possible formation paths of massive BHs above the assumed lower PSN mass-gap limit (⁠|$45\, {\rm M}_\odot$|⁠) into the intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) regime (⁠|$\gt 100\, {\rm M}_\odot$|⁠) which include collisions of stars, BHs, and the direct collapse of stellar merger remnants with low core masses. The stellar evolution updates result in the early formation of heavier stellar BHs compared to the previous model. The resulting higher collision rates with massive stars support the rapid formation of massive BHs. For models assuming a high accretion efficiency for star–BH mergers, we present a first-generation formation scenario for GW190521-like events: a merger of two BHs which reached the PSN mass-gap merging with massive stars. This event is independent of gravitational recoil and therefore conceivable in dense stellar systems with low escape velocities. One simulated cluster even forms an IMBH binary (153, 173 M⊙) which is expected to merge within a Hubble time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the novel wide and deep neural network GalaxyNet, which connects the properties of galaxies and dark matter haloes and is directly trained on observed galaxy statistics using reinforcement learning. The most important halo properties to predict stellar mass and star formation rate (SFR) are halo mass, growth rate, and scale factor at the time the mass peaks, which results from a feature importance analysis with random forests. We train different models with supervised learning to find the optimal network architecture. GalaxyNet is then trained with a reinforcement learning approach: for a fixed set of weights and biases, we compute the galaxy properties for all haloes and then derive mock statistics (stellar mass functions, cosmic and specific SFRs, quenched fractions, and clustering). Comparing these statistics to observations we get the model loss, which is minimized with particle swarm optimization. GalaxyNet reproduces the observed data very accurately and predicts a stellar-to-halo mass relation with a lower normalization and shallower low-mass slope at high redshift than empirical models. We find that at low mass, the galaxies with the highest SFRs are satellites, although most satellites are quenched. The normalization of the instantaneous conversion efficiency increases with redshift, but stays constant above z ≳ 0.5. Finally, we use GalaxyNet to populate a cosmic volume of (5.9 Gpc)3 with galaxies and predict the BAO signal, the bias, and the clustering of active and passive galaxies up to z  = 4, which can be tested with next-generation surveys, such as LSST and Euclid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular outflows contributing to the matter cycle of star-forming galaxies are now observed in small and large systems at low and high redshift. Their physical origin is still unclear. In most theoretical studies, only warm ionized/neutral and hot gas outflowing from the interstellar medium is generated by star formation. We investigate an in situ H2 formation scenario in the outflow using high-resolution simulations, including non-equilibrium chemistry and self-gravity, of turbulent, warm, and atomic clouds with densities 0.1, 0.5, and |$1\, \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$| exposed to a magnetized hot wind. For cloud densities |$\gtrsim 0.5\, \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$|⁠ , a magnetized wind triggers H2 formation before cloud dispersal. Up to 3 per cent of the initial cloud mass can become molecular on |$\sim \! 10\, \mathrm{Myr}$| time-scales. The effect is stronger for winds with perpendicular B -fields and intermediate density clouds (⁠|$n_\mathrm{c}\sim 0.5\, \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$|⁠). Here, H2 formation can be boosted by up to one order of magnitude compared to isolated cooling clouds independent of self-gravity. Self-gravity preserves the densest clouds well past their |$\sim \! 15\, \mathrm{Myr}$| cloud crushing time-scales. This model could provide a plausible in situ origin for the observed molecular gas. All simulations form warm ionized gas, which represents an important observable phase. The amount of warm ionized gas is almost independent of the cloud density but solely depends on the magnetic field configuration in the wind. For low-density clouds (⁠|$0.1\, \mathrm{cm}^{-3}$|⁠), up to 60 per cent of the initially atomic cloud mass can become warm and ionized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel hierarchical formulation of the fourth-order forward symplectic integrator and its numerical implementation in the GPU-accelerated direct-summation N -body code frost. The new integrator is especially suitable for simulations with a large dynamical range due to its hierarchical nature. The strictly positive integrator sub-steps in a fourth-order symplectic integrator are made possible by computing an additional gradient term in addition to the Newtonian accelerations. All force calculations and kick operations are synchronous so the integration algorithm is manifestly momentum-conserving. We also employ a time-step symmetrization procedure to approximately restore the time-reversibility with adaptive individual time-steps. We demonstrate in a series of binary, few-body and million-body simulations that frost conserves energy to a level of |Δ E / E | ∼ 10−10 while errors in linear and angular momentum are practically negligible. For typical star cluster simulations, we find that frost scales well up to |$N_\mathrm{GPU}^\mathrm{max}\sim 4\times N/10^5$| GPUs, making direct-summation N -body simulations beyond N = 106 particles possible on systems with several hundred and more GPUs. Due to the nature of hierarchical integration, the inclusion of a Kepler solver or a regularized integrator with post-Newtonian corrections for close encounters and binaries in the code is straightforward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the galaxy–galaxy merger rate with the empirical model for galaxy formation, emerge. On average, we find that between 2 per cent and 20 per cent of massive galaxies (log10(m */M⊙) ≥ 10.3) will experience a major merger per Gyr. Our model predicts galaxy merger rates that do not scale as a power law with redshift when selected by descendant stellar mass, and exhibit a clear stellar mass and mass-ratio dependence. Specifically, major mergers are more frequent at high masses and at low redshift. We show mergers are significant for the stellar mass growth of galaxies log10(m */M⊙) ≳ 11.0. For the most massive galaxies major mergers dominate the accreted mass fraction, contributing as much as 90 per cent of the total accreted stellar mass. We reinforce that these phenomena are a direct result of the stellar-to-halo mass relation, which results in massive galaxies having a higher likelihood of experiencing major mergers than low-mass galaxies. Our model produces a galaxy pair fraction consistent with recent observations, exhibiting a form best described by a power-law exponential function. Translating these pair fractions into merger rates results in an inaccurate prediction compared to the model intrinsic values when using published observation time-scales. We find the pair fraction can be well mapped to the intrinsic merger rate by adopting an observation time-scale that decreases linearly with redshift as T obs = −0.36(1 + z) + 2.39 [Gyr], assuming all observed pairs merge by z  = 0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present constraints on the emergence and evolution of passive galaxies with the empirical model emerge , which reproduces the evolution of stellar mass functions (SMFs), specific and cosmic star formation rates since |$z$|  ≈ 10, 'quenched' galaxy fractions, and correlation functions. At fixed halo mass, present-day passive galaxies are more massive than active galaxies, whereas at fixed stellar mass passive galaxies populate more massive haloes in agreement with observations. This effect naturally results from the shape and scatter of the stellar-to-halo mass relation. The stellar mass assembly of present-day passive galaxies is dominated by ' in situ ' star formation below ∼3 × 1011 M⊙ and by merging and accretion of ' ex situ ' formed stars at higher mass. The mass dependence is in tension with current cosmological simulations. Lower mass passive galaxies show extended star formation towards low redshift in agreement with IFU surveys. All passive galaxies have main progenitors on the 'main sequence of star formation' with the 'red sequence' appearing at |$z$|  ≈ 2. Above this redshift, over 95 per cent of the progenitors of passive galaxies are active. More than 90 per cent of |$z$|  ≈ 2 'main sequence' galaxies with m * > 1010 M⊙ evolve into present-day passive galaxies. Above redshift 6, more than 80 per cent of the observed SMFs above 109 M⊙ can be accounted for by progenitors of passive galaxies with m * > 1010 M⊙. This implies that high-redshift observations mainly probe the birth of present-day passive galaxies. emerge is available at github.com/bmoster/emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an analysis of the origin and properties of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) in a suite of 11 cosmological zoom simulations resembling present-day spiral galaxies. On average the galaxies retain about 50 per cent of the cosmic fraction in baryons, almost equally divided into disc (interstellar medium) gas, cool CGM gas and warm-hot CGM gas. At radii smaller than 50 kpc the CGM is dominated by recycled warm-hot gas injected from the central galaxy, while at larger radii it is dominated by cool gas accreted on to the halo. The recycled gas typically accounts for one-third of the CGM mass. We introduce the novel publicly available analysis tool pygad to compute ion abundances and mock absorption spectra. For Lyman α absorption, we find good agreement of the simulated equivalent width (EW) distribution and observations out to large radii. Disc galaxies with quiescent assembly histories show significantly more absorption along the disc major axis. By comparing the EW and H  i column densities, we find that CGM Lyman α absorbers are best represented by an effective line width b ≈ 50–70 km s−1 that increases mildly with halo mass, larger than typically assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supernovae (SNe) generate hot gas in the interstellar medium (ISM), help setting the ISM structure, and support the driving of outflows. It is important to resolve the hot gas generation for galaxy formation simulations at solar mass and sub-parsec resolution that realize individual SN explosions with ambient densities varying by several orders of magnitude in a realistic multiphase ISM. We test resolution requirements by simulating SN blast waves at three metallicities (Z  = 0.01, 0.1, and 1 Z⊙), six densities and their respective equilibrium chemical compositions (n  = 0.001–100 cm−3), and four mass resolutions (0.1–100 M⊙), in three dimensions. We include non-equilibrium cooling and chemistry, a homogeneous interstellar radiation field, and shielding with a modern pressure–energy smoothed particle hydrodynamics method including isotropic thermal conduction and a meshless-finite-mass solver. We find stronger resolution requirements for chemistry and hot phase generation than for momentum generation. While at 10 M⊙ the radial momenta at the end of the Sedov phase start converging, the hot phase generation and chemistry require higher resolutions to represent the neutral-to-ionized hydrogen fraction at the end of the Sedov phase correctly. Thermal conduction typically reduces the hot phase by 0.2 dex and has little impact on the chemical composition. In general, our 1 and 0.1 M⊙ results agree well with previous numerical and analytic estimates. We conclude that for the thermal energy injection SN model presented here resolutions higher than 10 M⊙ are required to model the chemistry, momentum, and hot phase generation in the multiphase ISM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the novel algorithmically regularized integration method mstar for high-accuracy (|Δ E/E | ≳ 10−14) integrations of N -body systems using minimum spanning tree coordinates. The twofold parallelization of the |$\mathcal {O}(N_\mathrm{part}^2)$| force loops and the substep divisions of the extrapolation method allow for a parallel scaling up to N CPU = 0.2 × N part. The efficient parallel scaling of mstar makes the accurate integration of much larger particle numbers possible compared to the traditional algorithmic regularization chain (ar-chain) methods, e.g. N part = 5000 particles on 400 CPUs for 1 Gyr in a few weeks of wall-clock time. We present applications of mstar on few particle systems, studying the Kozai mechanism and N -body systems like star clusters with up to N part = 104 particles. Combined with a tree or fast multipole-based integrator, the high performance of mstar removes a major computational bottleneck in simulations with regularized subsystems. It will enable the next-generation galactic-scale simulations with up to 109 stellar particles (e.g. |$m_\star = 100 \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$| for an |$M_\star = 10^{11} \, \mathrm{M}_\odot$| galaxy), including accurate collisional dynamics in the vicinity of nuclear supermassive black holes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmic ray (CR) protons are an important component in many astrophysical systems. Processes like CR injection, cooling, adiabatic changes as well as active CR transport through the medium strongly modify the CR momentum distribution and have to be taken into account in hydrodynamical simulations. We present an efficient novel numerical scheme to accurately compute the evolution of the particle distribution function by solving the Fokker–Planck equation with a low number of spectral bins (10–20), which is required to include a full spectrum for every computational fluid element. The distribution function is represented by piecewise power laws and is not forced to be continuous, which enables an optimal representation of the spectrum. The Fokker–Planck equation is solved with a two-moment approach evolving the CR number and energy density. The low numerical diffusion of the scheme reduces the numerical errors by orders of magnitude in comparison to classical schemes with piecewise constant spectral representations. With this method not only the spectral evolution of CRs can be computed accurately in magnetohydrodynamic simulations but also their dynamical impact as well as CR ionization. This allows for more accurate models for astrophysical plasmas, like the interstellar medium, and direct comparisons with observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a series of 10 × 2 cosmological zoom simulations of the formation of massive galaxies with and without a model for active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback. Differences in stellar population and kinematic properties are evaluated by constructing mock integral field unit maps. The impact of the AGN is weak at high redshift when all systems are mostly fast rotating and disc-like. After z ∼ 1 the AGN simulations result in lower mass, older, less metal rich, and slower rotating systems with less discy isophotes – in general agreement with observations. 2D kinematic maps of in situ and accreted stars show that these differences result from reduced in-situ star formation due to AGN feedback. A full analysis of stellar orbits indicates that galaxies simulated with AGN are typically more triaxial and have higher fractions of x-tubes and box orbits and lower fractions of z-tubes. This trend can also be explained by reduced late in-situ star formation. We introduce a global parameter, ξ3, to characterize the anticorrelation between the third-order kinematic moment h 3 and the line-of-sight velocity (V avg/σ), and compare to ATLAS3 D observations. The kinematic correlation parameter ξ3 might be a useful diagnostic for large integral field surveys as it is a kinematic indicator for intrinsic shape and orbital content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effect of active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback from central galaxies on their satellites by comparing two sets of cosmological zoom-in runs of 27 haloes with masses ranging from 1012 to 1013.4 |$\rm {M}_{\odot}$| at z  = 0, with (wAGN) and without (noAGN) AGN feedback. Both simulations include stellar feedback from multiple processes, including powerful winds from supernovae, stellar winds from young massive stars, AGB stars, radiative heating within Strömgren spheres and photoelectric heating. Our wAGN model is identical to the noAGN model except that it also includes a model for black hole seeding and accretion, as well as AGN feedback via high-velocity broad absorption line winds and Compton/photoionization heating. We show that the inclusion of AGN feedback from the central galaxy significantly affects the star formation history and the gas content of the satellite galaxies. AGN feedback starts to affect the gas content and the star formation of the satellites as early as z  = 2. The mean gas-rich fraction of satellites at z  = 0 decreases from 15 per cent in the noAGN simulation to 5 per cent in the wAGN simulation. The difference between the two sets extends as far out as five times the virial radius of the central galaxy at z  = 1. We investigate the quenching mechanism by studying the physical conditions in the surroundings of pairs of satellites matched across the wAGN and noAGN simulations and find an increase in the temperature and relative velocity of the intergalactic gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the destruction of interstellar dust via sputtering in supernova (SN) shocks using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. With a novel numerical framework, we follow both sputtering and dust dynamics governed by direct collisions, plasma drag, and betatron acceleration. Grain–grain collisions are not included and the grain-size distribution is assumed to be fixed. The amount of dust destroyed per SN is quantified for a broad range of ambient densities and fitting formulae are provided. Integrated over the grain-size distribution, non-thermal (inertial) sputtering dominates over thermal sputtering for typical ambient densities. We present the first simulations that explicitly follow dust sputtering within a turbulent multiphase interstellar medium. We find that the dust destruction time-scales τ are 0.35 Gyr for silicate dust and 0.44 Gyr for carbon dust in solar neighbourhood conditions. The SN environment has an important impact on τ. SNe that occur in pre-existing bubbles destroy less dust as the destruction is limited by the amount of dust in the shocked gas. This makes τ about 2.5 times longer than the estimate based on results from a single SN explosion. We investigate the evolution of the dust-to-gas mass ratio (DGR), and find that a spatial inhomogeneity of ∼14 per cent develops for scales below 10 pc. It locally correlates positively with gas density but negatively with gas temperature even in the exterior of the bubbles due to incomplete gas mixing. This leads to an ∼30 per cent lower DGR in the volume filling warm gas compared to that in the dense clouds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galactic outflows are critical to our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. However, the details of the underlying feedback process remain unclear. We compare Ly α observations of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) with mock observations of their simulated CGM. We use cosmological hydrodynamical 'zoom-in' simulations of an LBG which contains strong, momentum-driven galactic outflows. Simulation snapshots at |$z$|  = 2.2 and |$z$|  = 2.65 are used, corresponding to the available observational data. The simulation is post-processed with the radiative transfer code crash to account for the impact of ionizing photons on hydrogen gas surrounding the simulated LBG. We generate mock absorption line maps for comparison with data derived from observed close galaxy–galaxy pairs. We perform calculations of Ly α photons scattering through the CGM with our newly developed Monte Carlo code slaf, and compare to observations of diffuse Ly α haloes around LBGs. Our fiducial galactic outflow model comes closer to reproducing currently observed characteristics of the CGM in Ly α than a reference inefficient feedback model used for comparison. Nevertheless, our fiducial model still struggles to reproduce the observed data of the inner CGM (at impact parameter b < 30 kpc). Our results suggest that galactic outflows affect Ly α absorption and emission around galaxies mostly at impact parameters b < 50 kpc, while cold accretion flows dominate at larger distances. We discuss the implications of this result, and underline the potential constraining power of CGM observations – in emission and absorption – on galactic outflow models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the impact of cosmic rays (CRs) on galactic outflows from a multiphase interstellar medium with solar neighbourhood conditions. The three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical simulations include CRs as a relativistic fluid in the advection-diffusion approximation. The thermal and chemical state of the interstellar medium is computed with a non-equilibrium chemical network. We find that CRs [injected with 10  per cent of the supernova (SN) energy] efficiently support the launching of outflows and strongly affect their phase structure. Outflows leaving the midplane are denser ($$\rho \sim 10^{-26}\, \mathrm{g\, cm}^{-3}$$), colder ($${\sim } 10^4\, \mathrm{K}$$) and slower ($${\sim } 30\, \mathrm{km\, s}^{-1}$$) if CRs are considered in addition to thermal SNe. The CR-supported outflows are also smoother, in particular at larger heights (> $$1\, \mathrm{kpc}$$ above the midplane) without the direct impact of SN explosions. Approximately, 5 per cent − 25 per cent of the injected CR energy is lost via hadronic cooling. Smaller diffusion coefficients lead to slightly larger hadronic losses but allow for steeper CR pressure gradients, stronger outflows and larger accelerations. Up to a height of $$z \sim 1\, \mathrm{kpc,}$$ there are large volumes in approximate pressure equilibrium between the thermal and the CR component. At larger altitudes, the CR pressure is 10–100 times as large as the thermal counterpart. More than $${\sim } 1\, \mathrm{kpc}$$ away from the midplane, CRs provide the dominant gas acceleration mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present emerge, an Empirical ModEl for the foRmation of GalaxiEs, describing the evolution of individual galaxies in large volumes from z ∼ 10 to the present day. We assign a star formation rate to each dark matter halo based on its growth rate, which specifies how much baryonic material becomes available, and the instantaneous baryon conversion efficiency, which determines how efficiently this material is converted to stars, thereby capturing the baryonic physics. Satellites are quenched following the delayed-then-rapid model, and they are tidally disrupted once their subhalo has lost a significant fraction of its mass. The model is constrained with observed data extending out to high redshift. The empirical relations are very flexible, and the model complexity is increased only if required by the data, assessed by several model selection statistics. We find that for the same final halo mass galaxies can have very different star formation histories. Galaxies that are quenched at z = 0 typically have a higher peak star formation rate compared to their star-forming counterparts. emerge predicts stellar-to-halo mass ratios for individual galaxies and introduces scatter self-consistently. We find that at fixed halo mass, passive galaxies have a higher stellar mass on average. The intracluster mass in massive haloes can be up to eight times larger than the mass of the central galaxy. Clustering for star-forming and quenched galaxies is in good agreement with observational constraints, indicating a realistic assignment of galaxies to haloes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a high-resolution smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulation of the Antennae galaxies (NGC 4038/4039) and follow the evolution 3 Gyr beyond the final coalescence. The simulation includes metallicity-dependent cooling, star formation, and both stellar feedback and chemical enrichment. The simulated best-match Antennae reproduce well both the observed morphology and the off-nuclear starburst. We also produce for the first time a simulated two-dimensional (2D) metallicity map of the Antennae and find good agreement with the observed metallicity of off-nuclear stellar clusters; however, the nuclear metallicities are overproduced by ~0.5 dex. Using the radiative transfer code SKIRT, we produce multiwavelength observations of both the Antennae and the merger remnant. The 1-Gyr-old remnant is well fitted with a Sérsic profile of n = 7.07, and with an r-band effective radius of re = 1.6 kpc and velocity dispersion of σe = 180 km s-1 the remnant is located on the Fundamental Plane of early-type galaxies (ETGs). The initially blue Antennae remnant evolves on to the red sequence after ~2.5 Gyr of secular evolution. The remnant would be classified as a fast rotator, as the specific angular momentum evolves from λRe ≈ 0.11 to 0.14 during its evolution. The remnant shows ordered rotation and a double peaked maximum in the mean 2D line-of-sight velocity. These kinematical features are relatively common amongst local ETGs and we specifically identify three local ETGs (NGC 3226, NGC 3379, and NGC 4494) in the ATLAS3D sample, whose photometric and kinematic properties most resemble the Antennae remnant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galaxies occupy different regions of the [OIII]λ5007/H β-versus-[N II]λ6584/H α emissionline ratio diagram in the distant and local Universe. We investigate the origin of this intriguing result by modelling self-consistently, for the first time, nebular emission from young stars, accreting black holes (BHs) and older, post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stellar populations in galaxy formation simulations in a full cosmological context. In post-processing, we couple new-generation nebular-emission models with high-resolution, cosmological zoom-in simulations of massive galaxies to explore which galaxy physical properties drive the redshift evolution of the optical-line ratios [OIII]λ5007/H β, [NII]λ6584/H α, [SII]λλ6717, 6731/H α and [O I]λ6300/H α. The line ratios of simulated galaxies agree well with observations of both star-forming and active local Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies. Towards higher redshifts, at fixed galaxy stellar mass, the average [O III]/H β is predicted to increase and [N II]/H α, [S II]/H α and [O I]/H α to decrease - widely consistent with observations. At fixed stellar mass, we identify star formation history, which controls nebular emission from young stars via the ionization parameter, as the primary driver of the cosmic evolution of [OIII]/H β and [N II]/H α. For [SII]/H α and [O I]/H α, this applies only to redshifts greater than z = 1.5, the evolution at lower redshift being driven in roughly equal parts by nebular emission from active galactic nuclei and post-AGB stellar populations. Instead, changes in the hardness of ionizing radiation, ionized-gas density, the prevalence of BH accretion relative to star formation and the dust-to-metal mass ratio (whose impact on the gas-phase N/O ratio we model at fixed O/H) play at most a minor role in the cosmic evolution of simulated galaxy line ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We observed 12 nearby HI-detected early-type galaxies (ETGs) of stellar mass ~1010M⊙ ≤ M* ≤~1011M⊙ with the Mitchell Integral-Field Spectrograph, reaching approximately three half-light radii in most cases. We extracted line-of-sight velocity distributions for the stellar and gaseous components. We find little evidence of transitions in the stellar kinematics of the galaxies in our sample beyond the central effective radius, with centrally fast-rotating galaxies remaining fast-rotating and centrally slow-rotating galaxies likewise remaining slow-rotating. This is consistent with these galaxies having not experienced late dry major mergers; however, several of our objects have ionized gas that is misaligned with respect to their stars, suggesting some kind of past interaction. We extract Lick index measurements of the commonly used Hβ, Fe5015, Mgb, Fe5270 and Fe5335 absorption features, and we find most galaxies to have flat Hβ gradients and negative Mgb gradients. We measure gradients of age, metallicity and abundance ratio for our galaxies using spectral fitting, and for the majority of our galaxies find negative age and metallicity gradients. We also find the stellar mass-to-light ratios to decrease with radius for most of the galaxies in our sample. Our results are consistent with a view in which intermediate-mass ETGs experience mostly quiet evolutionary histories, but in which many have experienced some kind of gaseous interaction in recent times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of isolated dwarf galaxies including self-gravity, non-equilibrium cooling and chemistry, interstellar radiation fields (ISRF) and shielding, star formation, and stellar feedback. This includes spatially and temporally varying photoelectric (PE) heating, photoionization, resolved supernova (SN) blast waves and metal enrichment. A new flexible method to sample the stellar initial mass function allows us to follow the contribution to the ISRF, the metal output and the SN delay times of individual massive stars. We find that SNe play the dominant role in regulating the global star formation rate, shaping the multiphase interstellar medium (ISM) and driving galactic outflows. Outflow rates (with mass-loading factors of a few) and hot gas fractions of the ISM increase with the number of SNe exploding in low-density environments where radiative energy losses are low. While PE heating alone can suppress star formation as efficiently as SNe alone can do, it is unable to drive outflows and reproduce the multiphase ISM that emerges naturally whenever SNe are included. We discuss the potential origins for the discrepancy between our results and another recent study that claimed that PE heating dominates over SNe. In the absence of SNe and photoionization (mechanisms to disperse dense clouds), the impact of PE heating is highly overestimated owing to the (unrealistic) proximity of dense gas to the radiation sources. This leads to a substantial boost of the infrared continuum emission from the UV-irradiated dust and a far-infrared line-to-continuum ratio too low compared to observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations showing the effect of kinetic and radiative active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback on a model galaxy representing a massive quiescent low-redshift early-type galaxy of M* = 8.41 × 1010M☉, harbouring an MBH = 4 × 108 M☉ black hole surrounded by a cooling gaseous halo. We show that, for a total baryon fraction of ~20 per cent of the cosmological value, feedback from the AGN can keep the galaxy quiescent for about 4.35 Gyr and with properties consistent with black hole mass and X-ray luminosity scaling relations. However, this can only be achieved if the AGN feedback model includes both kinetic and radiative feedback modes. The simulation with only kinetic feedback fails to keep the model galaxy fully quiescent, while one with only radiative feedback leads to excessive black hole growth. For higher baryon fractions (e.g. 50 per cent of the cosmological value), the X-ray luminosities exceed observed values by at least one order of magnitude, and rapid cooling results in a star-forming galaxy. The AGN plays a major role in keeping the circumgalactic gas at observed metallicities of Z/Z☉ ≳ 0.3 within the central ~30 kpc by venting nuclear gas enriched with metals from residual star formation activity. As indicated by previous cosmological simulations, our results are consistent with a model for which the black hole mass and the total baryon fraction are set at higher redshifts z > 1 and the AGN alone can keep the model galaxy on observed scaling relations. Models without AGN feedback violate both the quiescence criterion as well as circumgalactic medium metallicity constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present three-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamical simulations of the impact of stellar winds, photoelectric heating, photodissociating and photoionizing radiation, and supernovae on the chemical composition and star formation in a stratified disc model. This is followed by a sink-based model for star clusters with populations of individual massive stars. Stellar winds and ionizing radiation regulate the star formation rate at a factor of ~10 below the simulation with only supernova feedback due to their immediate impact on the ambient interstellar medium after star formation. Ionizing radiation (with winds and supernovae) significantly reduces the ambient densities for most supernova explosions to ρ < 10-25 g cm-3, compared to 10-23g cm-3 for the model with only winds and supernovae. Radiation from massive stars reduces the amount of molecular hydrogen and increases the neutral hydrogen mass and volume filling fraction. Only this model results in a molecular gas depletion time-scale of 2 Gyr and shows the best agreement with observations. In the radiative models, the Hα emission is dominated by radiative recombination as opposed to collisional excitation (the dominant emission in non-radiative models), which only contributes ~1-10 per cent to the total Hα emission. Individual massive stars (M ≥ 30M☉) with short lifetimes are responsible for significant fluctuations in the Hα luminosities. The corresponding inferred star formation rates can underestimate the true instantaneous star formation rate by a factor of ~10. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We observed the lenticular galaxy NGC 3998 with the Mitchell Integral-Field Spectrograph and extracted line-of-sight velocity distributions out to three half-light radii. We constructed collisionless orbit models in order to constrain NGC 3998's dark and visible structure, using kinematics from both the Mitchell and SAURON instruments. We find NGC 3998 to be almost axisymmetric, seen nearly face-on with a flattened intrinsic shape - i.e. a face-on fast rotator. We find an I-band mass-to-light ratio of 4.7+0.32-0.45 in good agreement with previous spectral fitting results for this galaxy. Our best-fitting orbit model shows a both a bulge and a disc component, with a non-negligible counter-rotating component also evident. We find that relatively little dark matter is needed to model this galaxy, with an inferred dark mass fraction of just (7.1+8.1-7.1) per cent within one half-light radius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the connection of star formation to atomic (HI) and molecular hydrogen (H2) in isolated, low-metallicity dwarf galaxies with high-resolution (mgas = 4 M⊙, Nngb = 100) smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. The model includes self-gravity, non-equilibrium cooling, shielding from a uniform and constant interstellar radiation field, the chemistry of H2 formation, H2-independent star formation, supernova feedback and metal enrichment. We find that the H2 mass fraction is sensitive to the adopted dust-to-gas ratio and the strength of the interstellar radiation field, while the star formation rate is not. Star formation is regulated by stellar feedback, keeping the gas out of thermal equilibrium for densities n < 1 cm−3. Because of the long chemical time-scales, the H2 mass remains out of chemical equilibrium throughout the simulation. Star formation is well correlated with cold (T ≤ 100 K) gas, but this dense and cold gas - the reservoir for star formation - is dominated by HI, not H2. In addition, a significant fraction of H2 resides in a diffuse, warm phase, which is not star-forming. The interstellar medium is dominated by warm gas (100 K < T ≤ 3 × 104 K) both in mass and in volume. The scaleheight of the gaseous disc increases with radius while the cold gas is always confined to a thin layer in the mid-plane. The cold gas fraction is regulated by feedback at small radii and by the assumed radiation field at large radii. The decreasing cold gas fractions result in a rapid increase in depletion time (up to 100 Gyr) for total gas surface densities ΣHI+H2≲ 10 M⊙pc−2, in agreement with observations of dwarf galaxies in the Kennicutt-Schmidt plane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing the DRAGON simulation project, we present direct N-body simulations of four massive globular clusters (GCs) with 106 stars and 5 per cent primordial binaries at a high level of accuracy and realism. The GC evolution is computed with NBODY6++GPU and follows the dynamical and stellar evolution of individual stars and binaries, kicks of neutron stars and black holes (BHs), and the effect of a tidal field.We investigate the evolution of the luminous (stellar) and dark (faint stars and stellar remnants) GC components and create mock observations of the simulations (i.e. photometry, colour-magnitude diagrams, surface brightness and velocity dispersion profiles). By connecting internal processes to observable features, we highlight the formation of a long-lived 'dark' nuclear subsystem made of BHs, which results in a twocomponent structure. The inner core is dominated by the BH subsystem and experiences a core-collapse phase within the first Gyr. It can be detected in the stellar (luminous) line-of-sight velocity dispersion profiles. The outer extended core - commonly observed in the (luminous) surface brightness profiles - shows no collapse features and is continuously expanding. We demonstrate how a King model fit to observed clusters might help identify the presence of post core-collapse BH subsystems. For global observables like core and half-mass radii, the direct simulations agree well with Monte Carlo models. Variations in the initial mass function can result in significantly different GC properties (e.g. density distributions) driven by varying amounts of early mass-loss and the number of forming BHs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SILCC project (SImulating the Life-Cycle of molecular Clouds) aims at a more selfconsistent understanding of the interstellar medium (ISM) on small scales and its link to galaxy evolution. We present three-dimensional (magneto)hydrodynamic simulations of the ISM in a vertically stratified box including self-gravity, an external potential due to the stellar component of the galactic disc, and stellar feedback in the form of an interstellar radiation field and supernovae (SNe). The cooling of the gas is based on a chemical network that follows the abundances of H+, H, H2, C+, and CO and takes shielding into account consistently. We vary the SN feedback by comparing different SN rates, clustering and different positioning, in particular SNe in density peaks and at random positions, which has a major impact on the dynamics. Only for random SN positions the energy is injected in sufficiently low-density environments to reduce energy losses and enhance the effective kinetic coupling of the SNe with the gas. This leads to more realistic velocity dispersions (sHI 0.8s300-8000K ~ 10-20 km s-1, sHa 0.6s8000-3 105 K ~ 20-30 km s-1), and strong outflows with mass loading factors (ratio of outflow to star formation rate) of up to 10 even for solar neighbourhood conditions. Clustered SNe abet the onset of outflows compared to individual SNe but do not influence the net outflow rate. The outflows do not contain any molecular gas and are mainly composed of atomic hydrogen. The bulk of the outflowing mass is dense (~ 10-25-10-24 g cm-3) and slow (v ~ 20-40 km s-1) but there is a high-velocity tail of up to v ~ 500 km s-1 with ~ 10-28-10-27 g cm-3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a hybrid code combining the OpenMP-parallel tree code VINE with an algorithmic chain regularization scheme. The new code, called "rVINE", aims to significantly improve the accuracy of close encounters of massive bodies with supermassive black holes in galaxy-scale numerical simulations. We demonstrate the capabilities of the code by studying two test problems, the sinking of a single massive black hole to the centre of a gas-free galaxy due to dynamical friction and the hardening of a supermassive black hole binary due to close stellar encounters. We show that results obtained with rVINE compare well with NBODY7 for problems with particle numbers that can be simulated with NBODY7. In particular, in both NBODY7 and rVINE we find a clear N-dependence of the binary hardening rate, a low binary eccentricity and moderate eccentricity evolution, as well as the conversion of the galaxy's inner density profile from a cusp to a a core via the ejection of stars at high velocity. The much larger number of particles that can be handled by rVINE will open up exciting opportunities to model stellar dynamics close to SMBHs much more accurately in a realistic galactic context. This will help to remedy the inherent limitations of commonly used tree solvers to follow the correct dynamical evolution of black holes in galaxy scale simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate direct N-body simulations help to obtain detailed information about the dynamical evolution of star clusters. They also enable comparisons with analytical models and Fokker-Planck or Monte Carlo methods. NBODY6 is a well-known direct N-body code for star clusters, and NBODY6++ is the extended version designed for large particle number simulations by supercomputers. We present NBODY6++GPU, an optimized version of NBODY6++ with hybrid parallelization methods (MPI, GPU, OpenMP, and AVX/SSE) to accelerate large direct N-body simulations, and in particular to solve the million-body problem. We discuss the new features of the NBODY6++GPU code, benchmarks, as well as the first results from a simulation of a realistic globular cluster initially containing a million particles. For million-body simulations, NBODY6++GPU is 400-2000 times faster than NBODY6 with 320 CPU cores and 32 NVIDIA K20X GPUs. With this computing cluster specification, the simulations of million-body globular clusters including 5 percent primordial binaries require about an hour per half-mass crossing time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]