ABSTRACT We investigate the impact of cosmic rays (CRs) on the circumgalactic medium (CGM) in FIRE-2 simulations, for ultra-faint dwarf through Milky Way (MW)-mass haloes hosting star-forming (SF) galaxies. Our CR treatment includes injection by supernovae, anisotropic streaming and diffusion along magnetic field lines, and collisional and streaming losses, with constant parallel diffusivity $\kappa \sim 3\times 10^{29}\, \mathrm{cm^2\ s^{-1}}$ chosen to match γ-ray observations. With this, CRs become more important at larger halo masses and lower redshifts, and dominate the pressure in the CGM in MW-mass haloes at z ≲ 1–2. The gas in these ‘CR-dominated’ haloes differs significantly from runs without CRs: the gas is primarily cool (a few ${\sim}10^{4}\,$ K), and the cool phase is volume-filling and has a thermal pressure below that needed for virial or local thermal pressure balance. Ionization of the ‘low’ and ‘mid’ ions in this diffuse cool gas is dominated by photoionization, with O vi columns ${\gtrsim}10^{14.5}\, \mathrm{cm^{-2}}$ at distances ${\gtrsim}150\, \mathrm{kpc}$. CR and thermal gas pressure are locally anticorrelated, maintaining total pressure balance, and the CGM gas density profile is determined by the balance of CR pressure gradients and gravity. Neglecting CRs, the same haloes are primarily warm/hot ($T\gtrsim 10^{5}\,$K) with thermal pressure balancing gravity, collisional ionization dominates, O vi columns are lower and Ne viii higher, and the cool phase is confined to dense filaments in local thermal pressure equilibrium with the hot phase.
more »
« less
The structure and dynamics of massive high- z cosmic-web filaments: three radial zones in filament cross-sections
We analyse the internal structure and dynamics of cosmic-web filaments connecting massive high-z haloes. Our analysis is based on a high-resolution arepo cosmological simulation zooming-in on three Mpc-scale filaments feeding three massive haloes of $\sim 10^{12}\, \text{M}_\odot$ at z ∼ 4, embedded in a large-scale sheet. Each filament is surrounded by a cylindrical accretion shock of radius $r_{\rm shock} \sim 50 \, {\rm kpc}$. The post-shock gas is in virial equilibrium within the potential well set by an isothermal dark-matter filament. The filament line-mass is $\sim 9\times 10^8\, \text{M}_\odot \, {\rm kpc}^{-1}$, the gas fraction within rshock is the universal baryon fraction, and the virial temperature is ∼7 × 105 K. These all match expectations from analytical models for filament properties as a function of halo mass and redshift. The filament cross-section has three radial zones. In the outer ‘thermal’ (T) zone, $r \ge 0.65 \, r_{\rm shock}$, inward gravity, and ram-pressure forces are overbalanced by outward thermal pressure forces, decelerating the inflowing gas and expanding the shock outwards. In the intermediate ‘vortex’ (V) zone, 0.25 ≤ r/rshock ≤ 0.65, the velocity field is dominated by a quadrupolar vortex structure due to offset inflow along the sheet through the post-shock gas. The outward force is dominated by centrifugal forces associated with these vortices, with additional contributions from global rotation and thermal pressure. Shear and turbulent forces associated with the vortices act inwards. The inner ‘stream’ (S) zone, $r \lt 0.25 \, r_{\rm shock}$, is a dense isothermal core, $T\sim 3 \times 10^4 \, {\rm K}$ and $n_{\rm H}\sim 0.01 \, {\rm cm^{-3}}$, defining the cold streams that feed galaxies. The core is formed by an isobaric cooling flow and is associated with a decrease in outward forces, though exhibiting both inflows and outflows.
more » « less- PAR ID:
- 10484921
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 527
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0035-8711
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 11256-11287
- Size(s):
- p. 11256-11287
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
null (Ed.)ABSTRACT We study the impact of cosmic rays (CRs) on the structure of virial shocks, using a large suite of high-resolution cosmological FIRE-2 simulations accounting for CR injection by supernovae. In Milky Way-mass, low-redshift (z ≲ 1−2) haloes, which are expected to form ‘hot haloes’ with slowly cooling gas in quasi-hydrostatic equilibrium (with a stable virial shock), our simulations without CRs do exhibit clear virial shocks. The cooler phase condensing out from inflows becomes pressure confined to overdense clumps, embedded in low-density, volume-filling hot gas with volume-weighted cooling time longer than inflow time. The gas thus transitions sharply from cool free-falling inflow, to hot and thermal-pressure supported at approximately the virial radius (≈Rvir), and the shock is quasi-spherical. With CRs, we previously argued that haloes in this particular mass and redshift range build up CR-pressure-dominated gaseous haloes. Here, we show that when CR pressure dominates over thermal pressure, there is no significant virial shock. Instead, inflowing gas is gradually decelerated by the CR pressure gradient and the gas is relatively subsonic out to and even beyond Rvir. Rapid cooling also maintains subvirial temperatures in the inflowing gas within ∼Rvir.more » « less
-
more » « less
ABSTRACT We study the formation of ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) using the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation TNG50 of the Illustris-TNG suite. We define UDGs as dwarf galaxies in the stellar mass range $\rm {7.5 \le log (M_{\star } / {\rm M}_{\odot }) \le 9 }$ that are in the 5 per cent most extended tail of the simulated mass–size relation. This results in a sample of UDGs with half-mass radii $\rm {r_{h \star } \gtrsim 2 \ kpc}$ and surface brightness between $\rm {24.5}$ and $\rm {28 \ mag \ arcsec^{-2}}$, similar to definitions of UDGs in observations. The large cosmological volume in TNG50 allows for a comparison of UDGs properties in different environments, from the field to galaxy clusters with virial mass $\rm {M_{200} \sim 2 \times 10^{14} ~ {\rm M}_{\odot }}$. All UDGs in our sample have dwarf-mass haloes ($\rm {M_{200}\sim 10^{11} ~ {\rm M}_{\odot } }$) and show the same environmental trends as normal dwarfs: field UDGs are star-forming and blue while satellite UDGs are typically quiescent and red. The TNG50 simulation predicts UDGs that populate preferentially higher spin haloes and more massive haloes at fixed $\rm {M_{\star }}$ compared to non-UDG dwarfs. This applies also to most satellite UDGs, which are actually ‘born’ UDGs in the field and infall into groups and clusters without significant changes to their size. We find, however, a small subset of satellite UDGs ($\lesssim 10~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$) with present-day stellar size a factor ≥1.5 larger than at infall, confirming that tidal effects, particularly in the lower mass dwarfs, are also a viable formation mechanism for some of these dwarfs, although sub-dominant in this simulation.
-
more » « less
ABSTRACT We use the ASTRID cosmological hydrodynamic simulation to investigate the properties and evolution of triple and quadruple massive black hole (MBH) systems at z = 2–3. Only a handful of MBH tuple systems have been detected to date. In ASTRID, we find 4 per cent of the $M_{\rm BH}\gt 10^7\, M_\odot$ are in tuples with $\Delta r_{\rm max} \lt 200\, {\rm kpc}$. The tuple systems span a range of separations with the majority of the observable AGN systems at Δr ∼ 50–100 kpc. They include some of the most massive BHs (up to $10^{10} \, M_\odot$) but with at least one of the components of $M_{\rm BH} \sim 10^7 \, {\rm M}_{\odot }$. Tuples’ host galaxies are typically massive with $M_* \sim 10^{10-11} \, M_\odot$. We find that $\gt 10~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ massive haloes with Mhalo > 1013 M⊙ host MBH tuples. Following the subsequent interactions between MBHs in tuples, we found that in $\sim 5~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the triplets all three MBHs merge within a Gyr, and 15 per cent go through one merger. As a by-product of the complex multigalaxy interaction of these systems, we also find that up to $\sim 5~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of tuples lead to runaway MBHs. In ASTRID, virtually all of the ultramassive black holes ($\gt 10^{10} \, M_\odot$) have undergone a triple quasar phase, while for BHs with $M_{\rm BH} \sim 10^9 \, M_\odot$, this fraction drops to 50 per cent.
-
ABSTRACT We revisit the question of ‘hot mode’ versus ‘cold mode’ accretion on to galaxies using steady-state cooling flow solutions and idealized 3D hydrodynamic simulations. We demonstrate that for the hot accretion mode to exist, the cooling time is required to be longer than the free-fall time near the radius where the gas is rotationally supported, Rcirc, i.e. the existence of the hot mode depends on physical conditions at the galaxy scale rather than on physical conditions at the halo scale. When allowing for the depletion of the halo baryon fraction relative to the cosmic mean, the longer cooling times imply that a virialized gaseous halo may form in halo masses below the threshold of $\sim 10^{12}\, {\rm M_{\odot }}$ derived for baryon-complete haloes. We show that for any halo mass there is a maximum accretion rate for which the gas is virialized throughout the halo and can accrete via the hot mode of ${\dot{M}}_{\rm crit}\approx 0.7(v_{\rm c}/100\, \rm km\ s^{-1})^{5.4}(R_{\rm circ}/10\, {\rm kpc})(Z/\, {\rm Z_{\odot }})^{-0.9}\, {\rm M_{\odot }}\, {\rm yr}^{-1}$, where Z and vc are the metallicity and circular velocity measured at Rcirc. For accretion rates $\gtrsim {\dot{M}}_{\rm crit}$ the volume-filling gas phase can in principle be ‘transonic’ – virialized in the outer halo but cool and free-falling near the galaxy. We compare ${\dot{M}}_{\rm crit}$ to the average star formation rate (SFR) in haloes at 0 < z < 10 implied by the stellar-mass–halo-mass relation. For a plausible metallicity evolution with redshift, we find that ${\rm SFR}\lesssim {\dot{M}}_{\rm crit}$ at most masses and redshifts, suggesting that the SFR of galaxies could be primarily sustained by the hot mode in halo masses well below the classic threshold of $\sim 10^{12}\, {\rm M_{\odot }}$.more » « less
