Bibcode
Davis, A. J.; Khochfar, S.; Dalla Vecchia, C.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 443, Issue 2, p.985-1001
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9
2014
Citations
19
Refereed citations
19
Description
We study the effect of baryons on the inner dark matter profile of the
first galaxies using the First Billion Years simulation between z = 16
and 6 before secular evolution sets in. Using a large statistical sample
from two simulations of the same volume and cosmological initial
conditions, one with and one without baryons, we are able to directly
compare haloes with their baryon-free counterparts, allowing a detailed
study of the modifications to the dark matter density profile due to the
presence of baryons during the first billion years of galaxy formation.
For each of the ≈5000 haloes in our sample (3 × 107
M⊙ ≤ Mtot ≤ 5 × 109
M⊙), we quantify the impact of the baryons using η,
defined as the ratio of dark matter mass enclosed in 100 pc in the
baryonic run to its counterpart without baryons. During this epoch of
rapid growth of galaxies, we find that many haloes of these first
galaxies show an enhancement of dark matter in the halo centre compared
to the baryon-free simulation, while many others show a deficit. We find
that the mean value of η is close to unity, but there is a large
dispersion, with a standard deviation of 0.677. The enhancement is
cyclical in time and tracks the star formation cycle of the galaxy; as
gas falls to the centre and forms stars, the dark matter moves in as
well. Supernova (SN) feedback then removes the gas, and the dark matter
again responds to the changing potential. We study three physical models
relating the motion of baryons to that of the dark matter: adiabatic
contraction, dynamical friction, and rapid outflows. We find that
dynamical friction plays only a very minor role, while adiabatic
contraction and the rapid outflows due to feedback describe well the
enhancement (or decrement) of dark matter. For haloes which show
significant decrements of dark matter in the core, we find that to
remove the dark matter requires an energy input between 1051
and 1053 erg. For our SN feedback proscription, this requires
as a lower limit a constant star formation rate between 0.002 and 0.2
M⊙ yr-1 for the previous 5 Myr. We also find
that heating due to reionization is able to prevent the formation of
strong cusps for haloes which at z ˜ 12 have ≤108
M⊙. The lack of a strong cusp in these haloes remains
down to z = 6, the end of our simulation.
Related projects
Galaxy Evolution in Clusters of Galaxies
Galaxies in the universe can be located in different environments, some of them are isolated or in low density regions and they are usually called field galaxies. The others can be located in galaxy associations, going from loose groups to clusters or even superclusters of galaxies. One of the foremost challenges of the modern Astrophysics is to
Jairo
Méndez Abreu