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  1. Abstract We present a suite of high-resolution simulations of an isolated dwarf galaxy using four different hydrodynamical codes: Gizmo , Arepo , Gadget , and Ramses . All codes adopt the same physical model, which includes radiative cooling, photoelectric heating, star formation, and supernova (SN) feedback. Individual SN explosions are directly resolved without resorting to subgrid models, eliminating one of the major uncertainties in cosmological simulations. We find reasonable agreement on the time-averaged star formation rates as well as the joint density–temperature distributions between all codes. However, the Lagrangian codes show significantly burstier star formation, larger SN-driven bubbles, and stronger galactic outflows compared to the Eulerian code. This is caused by the behavior in the dense, collapsing gas clouds when the Jeans length becomes unresolved: Gas in Lagrangian codes collapses to much higher densities than that in Eulerian codes, as the latter is stabilized by the minimal cell size. Therefore, more of the gas cloud is converted to stars and SNe are much more clustered in the Lagrangian models, amplifying their dynamical impact. The differences between Lagrangian and Eulerian codes can be reduced by adopting a higher star formation efficiency in Eulerian codes, which significantly enhances SN clustering in the latter. Adopting a zero SN delay time reduces burstiness in all codes, resulting in vanishing outflows as SN clustering is suppressed. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2024
  2. ABSTRACT

    Arkenstone is a new model for multiphase, stellar feedback-driven galactic winds designed for inclusion in coarse resolution cosmological simulations. In this first paper of a series, we describe the features that allow Arkenstone to properly treat high specific energy wind components and demonstrate them using idealized non-cosmological simulations of a galaxy with a realistic circumgalactic medium (CGM), using the arepo code. Hot, fast gas phases with low mass loadings are predicted to dominate the energy content of multiphase outflows. In order to treat the huge dynamic range of spatial scales involved in cosmological galaxy formation at feasible computational expense, cosmological volume simulations typically employ a Lagrangian code or else use adaptive mesh refinement with a quasi-Lagrangian refinement strategy. However, it is difficult to inject a high specific energy wind in a Lagrangian scheme without incurring artificial burstiness. Additionally, the low densities inherent to this type of flow result in poor spatial resolution. Arkenstone addresses these issues with a novel scheme for coupling energy into the transition region between the interstellar medium (ISM) and the CGM, while also providing refinement at the base of the wind. Without our improvements, we show that poor spatial resolution near the sonic point of a hot, fast outflow leads to an underestimation of gas acceleration as the wind propagates. We explore the different mechanisms by which low and high specific energy winds can regulate the star formation rate of galaxies. In future work, we will demonstrate other aspects of the Arkenstone model.

     
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  3. ABSTRACT We present a novel set of stellar feedback models, implemented in the moving-mesh code arepo, designed for galaxy formation simulations with near-parsec (or better) resolution. These include explicit sampling of stars from the IMF, allowing feedback to be linked to individual massive stars, an improved method for the modelling of H ii regions, photoelectric (PE) heating from a spatially varying FUV field and supernova feedback. We perform a suite of 32 simulations of isolated $M_\mathrm{vir} = 10^{10}\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$ galaxies with a baryonic mass resolution of $20\, \mathrm{M_\odot }$ in order to study the non-linear coupling of the different feedback channels. We find that photoionization (PI) and supernova feedback are both independently capable of regulating star formation to the same level, while PE heating is inefficient. PI produces a considerably smoother star formation history than supernovae. When all feedback channels are combined, the additional suppression of star formation rates is minor. However, outflow rates are substantially reduced relative to the supernova only simulations. We show that this is directly caused by a suppression of supernova clustering by the PI feedback, disrupting star-forming clouds prior to the first supernovae. We demonstrate that our results are robust to variations of our star formation prescription, feedback models and the baryon fraction of the galaxy. Our results also imply that the burstiness of star formation and the mass loading of outflows may be overestimated if the adopted star particle mass is considerably larger than the mass of individual stars because this imposes a minimum cluster size. 
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  4. Abstract Physical and chemical properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) at subgalactic (∼kiloparsec) scales play an indispensable role in controlling the ability of gas to form stars. In this paper, we use the TNG50 cosmological simulation to explore the physical parameter space of eight resolved ISM properties in star-forming regions to constrain the areas of this hyperspace where most star-forming environments exist. We deconstruct our simulated galaxies spanning a wide range of mass ( M ⋆ = 10 7 –10 11 M ⊙ ) and redshift (0 ≤ z ≤ 3) into kiloparsec-sized regions and statistically analyze the gas/stellar surface densities, gas metallicity, vertical stellar velocity dispersion, epicyclic frequency, and dark-matter volumetric density representative of each region in the context of their star formation activity and environment (radial galactocentric location). By examining the star formation rate (SFR) weighted distributions of these properties, we show that stars primarily form in two distinct environmental regimes, which are brought about by an underlying bicomponent radial SFR profile in galaxies. We examine how the relative prominence of these regimes depends on galaxy mass and cosmic time. We also compare our findings with those from integral field spectroscopy observations and find similarities as well as departures. Further, using dimensionality reduction, we characterize the aforementioned hyperspace to reveal a high degree of multicollinearity in relationships among ISM properties that drive the distribution of star formation at kiloparsec scales. Based on this, we show that a reduced 3D representation underpinned by a multivariate radius relationship is sufficient to capture most of the variance in the original 8D space. 
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  5. Climate change-driven coral disease outbreaks have led to widespread declines in coral populations. Early work on coral genomics established that corals have a complex innate immune system, and whole-transcriptome gene expression studies have revealed mechanisms by which the coral immune system responds to stress and disease. The present investigation expands bioinformatic data available to study coral molecular physiology through the assembly and annotation of a reference transcriptome of the Caribbean reef-building coral,Orbicella faveolata. Samples were collected during a warm water thermal anomaly, coral bleaching event and Caribbean yellow band disease outbreak in 2010 in Puerto Rico. Multiplex sequencing of RNA on the Illumina GAIIx platform and de novo transcriptome assembly by Trinity produced 70,745,177 raw short-sequence reads and 32,463O. faveolatatranscripts, respectively. The reference transcriptome was annotated with gene ontologies, mapped to KEGG pathways, and a predicted proteome of 20,488 sequences was generated. Protein families and signaling pathways that are essential in the regulation of innate immunity across Phyla were investigated in-depth. Results were used to develop models of evolutionarily conserved Wnt, Notch, Rig-like receptor, Nod-like receptor, and Dicer signaling.O. faveolatais a coral species that has been studied widely under climate-driven stress and disease, and the present investigation provides new data on the genes that putatively regulate its immune system.

     
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