Early-type galaxy density profiles from IllustrisTNG – II. Evolutionary trend of the total density profile
ABSTRACT We study the evolutionary trend of the total density profile of early-type galaxies (ETGs) in IllustrisTNG. To this end, we trace ETGs from z = 0 to 4 and measure the power-law slope γ′ of the total density profile for their main progenitors. We find that their slopes γ′ steepen on average during z ∼ 4–2, then becoming shallower until z = 1, after which they remain almost constant, aside from a residual trend of becoming shallower towards z = 0. We also compare to a statistical sample of ETGs at different redshifts, selected based on their luminosity profiles and stellar masses. Due to different selection effects, the average slopes of the statistical samples follow a modified evolutionary trend. They monotonically decrease since z = 3, and after z ≈ 1, they remain nearly invariant with a mild increase towards z = 0. These evolutionary trends are mass dependent for both samples, with low-mass galaxies having in general steeper slopes than their more massive counterparts. Galaxies that transitioned to ETGs more recently have steeper mean slopes as they tend to be smaller and more compact at any given redshift. By analysing the impact of mergers and AGN feedback on the progenitors’ evolution, we conjecture a multiphase path leading to more »
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Award ID(s):
Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10104818
Journal Name:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume:
490
Issue:
4
Page Range or eLocation-ID:
5722 to 5738
ISSN:
0035-8711
1. ABSTRACT We explore the isothermal total density profiles of early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the IllustrisTNG simulation. For the selected 559 ETGs at z = 0 with stellar masses $10^{10.7}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot } \leqslant M_{\ast } \leqslant 10^{11.9}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$, the total power-law slope has a mean of 〈γ′〉 = 2.011 ± 0.007 and a scatter of $\sigma _{\gamma ^{\prime }} = 0.171$ over the radial range 0.4–4 times the stellar half-mass radius. Several correlations between γ′ and galactic properties including stellar mass, effective radius, stellar surface density, central velocity dispersion, central dark matter fraction, and in situ-formed stellar mass ratio are compared to observations and other simulations, revealing that IllustrisTNG reproduces many correlation trends, and in particular, γ′ is almost constant with redshift below z = 2. Through analysing IllustrisTNG model variations, we show that black hole kinetic winds are crucial to lowering γ′ and matching observed galaxy correlations. The effects of stellar winds on γ′ are subdominant compared to active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback, and differ due to the presence of AGN feedback from previous works. The density profiles of the ETG dark matter haloes are well described by steeper than NFW profiles, and they are steeper in the full physics (FP) run than their counterpartsmore »
Rotation curves of galaxies probe their total mass distributions, including dark matter. Dwarf galaxies are excellent systems to investigate the dark matter density distribution, as they tend to have larger fractions of dark matter compared to higher mass systems. The core-cusp problem describes the discrepancy found in the slope of the dark matter density profile in the centres of galaxies (β*) between observations of dwarf galaxies (shallower cores) and dark matter-only simulations (steeper cusps). We investigate β* in six nearby spiral dwarf galaxies for which high-resolution CO J = 1–0 data were obtained with ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array). We derive rotation curves and decompose the mass profile of the dark matter using our CO rotation curves as a tracer of the total potential and 4.5 $\mu$m photometry to define the stellar mass distribution. We find 〈β*〉 = 0.6 with a standard deviation of ±0.1 among the galaxies in this sample, in agreement with previous measurements in this mass range. The galaxies studied are on the high stellar mass end of dwarf galaxies and have cuspier profiles than lower mass dwarfs, in agreement with other observations. When the same definition of the slope is used, we observe steeper slopes than predicted bymore »