According to the hierarchical model, small galaxies form first and merge together to form bigger objects. In parallel, galaxies assemble their mass through accretion from cosmic filaments. Recently, the increased spatial resolution of the cosmological simulations have emphasised that a large fraction of cold gas can be accreted by galaxies. In order to compare the role of both phenomena and the corresponding star formation history, one has to detect the structures in the numerical simulations and to follow them in time, by building a merger tree.
Galaxies accrete their mass by means of both smooth accretion from the cosmic web, and the mergers of smaller entities. We wish to quantify the respective role of these two modes of accretion, which could determine the morphological types of galaxies observed today. Multi-zoom cosmological simulations are used to estimate as a function of time the evolution of mass in bound systems, for dark matter as well as baryons. The baryonic contents of dark matter haloes are studied. Merger histories are followed as a function of external density, and the different ways in which mass is assembled in gal…
The majority of galaxy mergers are expected to be minor mergers. The observational signatures of minor mergers are not well understood, thus there exist few constraints on the minor merger rate. This paper seeks to address this gap in our understanding by determining if and when minor mergers exhibit disturbed morphologies and how they differ from the morphology of major mergers. We simulate a series of unequal-mass moderate gas-fraction disc galaxy mergers. With the resulting g-band images, we determine how the time-scale for identifying galaxy mergers via projected separation and quantitativ…
Calculating the galaxy merger rate requires both a census of galaxies identified as merger candidates, and a cosmologically-averaged `observability' timescale T_obs(z) for identifying galaxy mergers. While many have counted galaxy mergers using a variety of techniques, T_obs(z) for these techniques have been poorly constrained. We address this problem by calibrating three merger rate estimators with a suite of hydrodynamic merger simulations and three galaxy formation models. We estimate T_obs(z) for (1) close galaxy pairs with a range of projected separations, (2) the morphology indicator G-M…
Gas-rich galaxy mergers are more easily identified by their disturbed morphologies than mergers with less gas. Because the typical gas fraction of galaxy mergers is expected to increase with redshift, the under-counting of low gas-fraction mergers may bias morphological estimates of the evolution of galaxy merger rate. To understand the magnitude of this bias, we explore the effect of gas fraction on the morphologies of a series of simulated disc galaxy mergers. With the resulting g-band images, we determine how the time-scale for identifying major and minor galaxy mergers via close projected …
We find that infalling dark matter halos (i.e., the progenitors of satellite halos) begin losing mass well outside the virial radius of their eventual host halos. The peak mass occurs at a range of clustercentric distances, with median and 68th percentile range of 1.8 +2.3/-1.0 R_(vir,host) for progenitors of z=0 satellites. The peak circular velocity for infalling halos occurs at significantly larger distances (3.7 +3.3/-2.2 R_(vir,host) at z=0). This difference arises because different physical processes set peak circular velocity (typically, ~1:5 and larger mergers which cause transient cir…
We study the gravitational stability of gaseous streams in the complex environment of a galaxy merger, because mergers are known to be places of ongoing massive cluster formation and bursts of star formation. We find an analytic stability parameter for case of gaseous streams orbiting around the merger remnant. We test our stability criteria using hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy mergers, obtaining satisfactory results. We find that our criteria successfully predicts the streams that will be gravitationally unstable to fragment into clumps.
We present a series of hundreds of collisionless simulations of galaxy group mergers. These simulations are designed to test whether the properties of elliptical galaxies - including the key fundamental plane scaling relation, morphology and kinematics - can be simultaneously reproduced by dry multiple mergers in galaxy groups. Preliminary results indicate that galaxy group mergers can produce elliptical remnants lying on a tilted fundamental plane, even without a central dissipational component from a starburst. This suggests that multiple mergers in groups are an alternate avenue for the for…
A recent approach to simulating localized feedback from active galactic nuclei by Power et al. (2011) uses an accretion disc particle to represent both the black hole and its accretion disc. We have extrapolated and adapted this approach to simulations of Milky Way-sized galaxy mergers containing black holes and explored the impact of the various parameters in this model as well as its resolution dependence. The two key parameters in the model are an effective accretion radius, which determines the radius within which gas particles are added to the accretion disc, and a viscous time-scale whic…
We study the environment of wet, dry, and mixed galaxy mergers at 0.75 < z < 1.2 using close pairs in the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey. We find that the typical environment of mixed and dry merger candidates is denser than that of wet mergers, mostly due to the color-density relation. While the galaxy companion rate (Nc) is observed to increase with overdensity, using N-body simulations we find that the fraction of pairs that will eventually merge decreases with the local density, predominantly because interlopers are more common in dense environments. After taking into account the merger prob…
Accretion is thought to primarily contribute to the mass accumulation history of supermassive black holes throughout cosmic time. While this may be true at high redshifts, at lower redshifts and for the most massive black holes mergers themselves might add significantly to the mass budget. We evolve SMBHs from $4 > z > 0$ using merger trees derived from hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of a cluster and void region, scaled to the observed value of the stellar mass fraction to account for overcooling. Mass gains from gas accretion proportional to bulge growth and BH-BH mergers are tracked…
The close relationship between mergers and the reorientation of the spin for galaxies and their host dark haloes is investigated using a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation (Horizon-AGN). Through a statistical analysis of merger trees, we show that spin swings are mainly driven by mergers along the filamentary structure of the cosmic web, and that these events account for the preferred perpendicular orientation of massive galaxies with respect to their nearest filament. By contrast, low-mass galaxies (M_s<10^10 M_sun at redshift 1.5) undergoing very few mergers, if at all, tend to possess a…
We select a close "major-merger candidate" galaxy pair sample in order to calculate the K_{s} luminosity function (LF) and pair fraction representative of the merger/interaction component of galaxy evolution in the local universe. The pair sample (projected separation 5 h$^{-1}$ kpc $\leq$ r $\leq$ 20 h$^{-1}$ kpc, $K_{s}$-band magnitude difference $Δ$$K_{s}$ $\leq$ 1 mag) is selected by combining the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 (DR5). The resulting data set contains 340 galaxies covering 5800 sq. degrees. A stellar mass function is…
Aims: We discuss the dependence of shocks, cosmic rays acceleration and turbulence on the dynamical state of the host clusters. Method: We perform cosmological simulations with the grid code ENZO 1.5, with a mesh refinement scheme tailored to follow at high resolution shocks and turbulence developed in the clusters volume. Results: Sizable differences are found when some important properties, connected to non-thermal activity in clusters, are compared for post-merger, merging and relaxing systems.
In this work I investigate the redshift evolution of pair fraction of a sample of 196 massive galaxies from z = 0 to 3, selected from the COSMOS field. We find that on average a massive galaxy undergoes ~ 1.1 \pm 0.5 major merger since z = 3. I will review the current limitations of using the pair fraction as a probe for quantifying the impact of mergers on galaxy evolution. This work is based on the paper Man et al. (2011).
In this proceeding we explore a pathway to radio-loudness under the hypothesis that retrograde accretion onto giant spinning black holes leads to the launch of powerful jets, as seen in radio loud QSOs and recently in LAT/Fermi and BAT/Swift Blazars. Counter-rotation of the accretion disc relative to the BH spin is here associated to gas-poor galaxy mergers progenitors of giant (missing-light) ellipticals. The occurrence of retrograde accretion enters as unifying element that may account for the radio-loudness/galaxy morphology dichotomy observed in AGN.
Gravlenses are efficiently explored for detecting the most distant galaxies (up to z=10 redshifts). As an example of the role played by gravlenses we refer to the observation of the galaxy merger at z=3 (Borys, et al; Berciano Alba, et al). We derived solutions for the Smoluchowski kinetic equation for the mass function of galaxies, which describes mergers in differential approximation (minor mergers). It is shown that the evolution of the slope of luminosity function observed in the Ultra Deep Hubble Field (Bouwence et al) can be described as a result of explosive evolution driven by galaxy m…
Building galaxy merger trees from a state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamics simulation, Horizon-AGN, we perform a statistical study of how mergers and smooth accretion drive galaxy morphologic properties above $z > 1$. More specifically, we investigate how stellar densities, effective radii and shape parameters derived from the inertia tensor depend on mergers of different mass ratios. We find strong evidence that smooth accretion tends to flatten small galaxies over cosmic time, leading to the formation of disks. On the other hand, mergers, and not only the major ones, exhibit a propensit…
We present the results of an Eulerian adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamical and N-body simulation in a $Λ$CDM cosmology. The simulation incorporates common cooling and heating processes for primordial gas. A specific halo finder has been designed and applied in order to extract a sample of galaxy clusters directly obtained from the simulation without considering any resimulating scheme. We have studied the evolutionary history of the cluster halos, and classified them into three categories depending on the merger events they have undergone: major mergers, minor mergers, and relaxed clu…
It has been recently suggested that supermassive black holes at z = 5-6 might form from super-fast (\dot M > 10^4 Msun/yr) accretion occurring in unstable, massive nuclear gas disks produced by mergers of Milky-Way size galaxies. Interestingly, such mechanism is claimed to work also for gas enriched to solar metallicity. These results are based on an idealized polytropic equation of state assumption, essentially preventing the gas from cooling. We show that under more realistic conditions, the disk rapidly (< 1 yr) cools, the accretion rate drops, and the central core can grow only to \approx …
Galaxy clusters grow by mergers with other clusters and galaxy groups. These mergers create shocks within the intracluster medium (ICM). It is proposed that within the shocks particles can be accelerated to extreme energies. In the presence of a magnetic field these particles should then form large regions emitting synchrotron radiation, creating so-called radio relics. An example of a cluster with relics is CIZA J2242.8+5301. Here we present hydrodynamical simulations of idealized binary cluster collisions with the aim of constraining the merger scenario for this cluster. We conclude that by …
We study the growth of dark matter halos in the concordance LCDM cosmology using several N-body simulations of large cosmological volumes. We build merger trees from the Millennium and Millennium-II simulations, covering a range 10^9-10^15 Msun in halo mass and 1-10^5 in merger mass ratio. Our algorithm takes special care of halo fragmentation and ensures that the mass contribution of each merger to halo growth is only counted once. This way the integrated merger rate converges and we can consistently determine the contribution of mergers of different mass ratios to halo growth. We find that a…
We use the "Millennium Simulation" to study the mass function of accreted sub-halos during merger events in the dark halo assembly history. Our study includes three kinds of sub-halo mergers: (1) mergers that happen to the main progenitor of dark halos; (2) mergers that happen on the entire merging history tree of dark halos; and (3) mergers that leave identifiable sub-halos in present-day dark halos. We estimate the unevolved sub-halo mass functions (USMFs), for which sub-halo masses are measured at the times of their accretion. For sub-halos that merge into the main branch of a present-day d…
We make use of four galaxy catalogs based on four different semi-analytical models (SAMs) implemented in the Millennium simulation to study the environmental effects and the model dependence of galaxy merger rate. We begin the analyses by finding that galaxy merger rate in the SAMs has mild redshift evolution, consistent with results of previous works. To study the environmental dependence of galaxy merger rate, we adopt two estimators, the local overdensity (1+δn) defined as the surface density from the nth-nearest-neighbor (n = 6 is chosen in this study) and the host halo mass Mh. We find th…
Several types/classes of shocks naturally arise during formation and evolution of galaxy clusters. One such class is represented by accretion shocks, associated with deceleration of infalling baryons. Such shocks, characterized by a very high Mach number, are present even in 1D models of cluster evolution. Another class is composed of "runaway merger shocks", which appear when a merger shock, driven by a sufficiently massive infalling subcluster, propagates away from the main-cluster center. We argue that, when the merger shock overtakes the accretion shock, a new long-living shock is formed t…
We explore the effects of r-process nucleosynthesis on fall-back accretion in neutron star(NS)-NS and black hole-NS mergers, and the resulting implications for short-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Though dynamically important, the energy released during the r-process is not yet taken into account in merger simulations. We use a nuclear reaction network to calculate the heating (due to beta-decays and nuclear fission) experienced by material on the marginally-bound orbits nominally responsible for late-time fall-back. Since matter with longer orbital periods t_orb experiences lower densities…
The evolution of galaxy merger rates and its impact on galaxy properties have been studied intensively over the last decade. It becomes clear now that various types of mergers, i.e. gas-rich (wet), gas-poor (dry), or mixed mergers, affect the merger products in different ways. The epoch when each type of merger dominates also differs. In this talk, I review the recent progress on the measurements of galaxy merger rates out to z ~ 3 and the level of interaction-triggered star formation using large samples from various redshift surveys. These results provide insights to the importance of mergers…
Electromagnetic Counterparts of Stellar-mass Binary Black Hole Mergers in AGN Accretion Disks: Theoretical Models and Observational Status
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院高能物理研究所）；Guizhou University（贵州大学）
The mapping between dark matter halo mass, galaxy stellar mass, and galaxy cold gas mass is not a simple linear relation, but is influenced by a wide array of galaxy formation processes. We implement observationally-normalized relations between dark matter halo mass, stellar mass, and cold gas mass to explore these mappings, with specific emphasis on the correlation between different definitions of a major galaxy merger. We always define a major merger by a mass ratio m/M>0.3, but allow the masses used to compute this ratio to be defined in one of three ways: dark matter halo masses, galaxy st…
The role of major mergers in triggering super-Eddington accretion
Dipartimento di Fisica, “Sapienza” Università di Roma（罗马大学物理系）；INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma（罗马天文台）；INFN, Sezione Roma1（罗马第一国家核物理研究所）；Sapienza School for Advanced Studies（萨皮恩扎高等研究学院）；Como Lake Center for Astrophysics, DiSAT, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria（因苏布里亚大学迪萨特科莫湖天体物理学中心）；INFN, Sezione di Milano-Bicocca（米兰比可卡国家核物理研究所）；INAF, Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna（博洛尼亚空间天体物理学与科学天文台）
Accurate estimation of the merger timescale of galaxy clusters is important to understand the cluster merger process and further the formation and evolution of the large-scale structure of the universe. In this paper, we explore a baryonic effect on the merger timescale of galaxy clusters by using hydrodynamical simulations. We find that the baryons play an important role in accelerating the merger process. The merger timescale decreases with increasing the gas fraction of galaxy clusters. For example, the merger timescale is shortened by a factor of up to 3 for merging clusters with gas fract…
Recent observations of AGN activity in massive galaxies (log Mstar / Msun > 10.4) show that: 1) at z < 1, AGN-hosting galaxies do not show enhanced merger signatures compared to normal galaxies, 2) also at z < 1, most AGNs are hosted by quiescent galaxies; and 3) at z > 1, percentage of AGNs in star forming galaxies increases and becomes comparable to AGN percentage in quiescent galaxies at z ~ 2. How can major mergers explain AGN activity in massive quiescent galaxies which have no merger features and no star formation to indicate recent galaxy merger? By matching merger events in a cosmologi…
Super-Eddington accretion is very efficient in growing the mass of a black hole: in a fraction of the Eddington time its mass can grow to an arbitrary large value if the feedback effect is not taken into account. However, since super-Eddington accretion has a very low radiation efficiency, people have argued against it as a major process for the growth of the black holes in quasars since observations have constrained the average accretion efficiency of the black holes in quasars to be $\ga 0.1$. In this paper we show that the observational constraint does not need to be violated if the black h…
We present the "Galaxy Cluster Merger Catalog." This catalog provides an extensive suite of mock observations and related data for N-body and hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy cluster mergers and clusters from cosmological simulations. These mock observations consist of projections of a number of important observable quantities in several different wavebands as well as along different lines of sight through each simulation domain. The web interface to the catalog consists of easily browseable images over epoch and projection direction, as well as download links for the raw data and a JS9 in…
Black holes across a broad range of masses play a key role in the evolution of galaxies. The initial seeds of black holes formed at $z \sim 30$ and grew over cosmic time by gas accretion and mergers. Using observational data for quasars and theoretical models for the hierarchical assembly of dark matter halos, we study the relative importance of gas accretion and mergers for black hole growth, as a function of redshift ($0<z<10$) and black hole mass ($ 10^3 \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}} < M_{\bullet} < 10^{10} \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$). We find that (i) growth by accretion is dominant in a large fractio…
We present the results from a Chandra pilot study of 12 massive galaxy mergers selected from Galaxy Zoo. The sample includes major mergers down to a host galaxy mass of 10$^{11}$ $M_\odot$ that already have optical AGN signatures in at least one of the progenitors. We find that the coincidences of optically selected active nuclei with mildly obscured ($N_H \lesssim 1.1 \times 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$) X-ray nuclei are relatively common (8/12), but the detections are too faint ($< 40$ counts per nucleus; $f_{2-10 keV} \lesssim 1.2 \times 10^{-13}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$) to reliably separate starburs…
We investigate the merger of a neutron star (of compaction ratio $0.1$) in orbit about a spinning black hole in full general relativity with a mass ratio of $5:1$, allowing for the star to have an initial magnetization of $10^{12} {\rm Gauss}$. We present the resulting gravitational waveform and analyze the fallback accretion as the star is disrupted. The evolutions suggest no significant effects from the initial magnetization. We find that only a negligible amount of matter becomes unbound; $99%$ of the neutron star material has a fallback time of 10 seconds or shorter to reach the region of …
A halo merger tree forms the essential backbone of a semi-analytic model for galaxy formation and evolution. Recent studies have pointed out that extracting merger trees from numerical simulations of structure formation is non-trivial; different tree building algorithms can give differing merger histories. These differences should be carefully understood before merger trees are used as input for models of galaxy formation. We investigate the impact of different halo merger trees on a semi-analytic model. We find that the z=0 galaxy properties in our model show differences between trees when us…
We study the cosmic MeV neutrino background from accretion disks formed during collapsars and the coalescence of compact-object mergers. We provide updated estimates, including detection rates, of relic neutrinos from collapsars, as well as estimates for neutrinos that are produced in mergers. Our results show that diffuse neutrinos detected at HyperK would likely include some that were emitted from binary neutron-star mergers. The collapsar rate is uncertain, but at its upper limit relic neutrinos from these sources would provide a significant contribution to the Cosmic Diffuse Neutrino Backg…
The newly discovered galaxy cluster 1RXS J0603.3+4214 hosts a 1.9 Mpc long, bright radio relic with a peculiar linear morphology. Using hydrodynamical +N-body AMR simulations of the merger between three initially hydrostatic clusters in an idealised setup, we are able to reconstruct the morphology of the radio relic. Based on our simulation, we can constrain the merger geometry, predict lensing mass measurements and X-ray observations. Comparing such models to X-ray, redshift and lensing data will validate the geometry of this complex merger which helps to constrain the parameters for shock ac…
This lecture reviews the fundamental physical processes involved in star formation in galaxy interactions and mergers. Interactions and mergers often drive intense starbursts, but the link between interstellar gas physics, large scale interactions, and active star formation is complex and not fully understood yet. Two processes can drive starbursts: radial inflows of gas can fuel nuclear starbursts, triggered gas turbulence and fragmentation can drive more extended starbursts in massive star clusters with high fractions of dense gas. Both modes are certainly required to account for the observe…
The large number of galaxies imaged by digital sky surveys reinforces the need for computational methods for analyzing galaxy morphology. While the morphology of most galaxies can be associated with a stage on the Hubble sequence, morphology of galaxy mergers is far more complex due to the combination of two or more galaxies with different morphologies and the interaction between them. Here we propose a computational method based on unsupervised machine learning that can quantitatively analyze morphologies of galaxy mergers and associate galaxies by their morphology. The method works by first …
We develop a galaxy assignment scheme that populates dark matter halos with galaxies by tracing the most bound member particles (MBPs) of simulated halos. Several merger-timescale models based on analytic calculations and numerical simulations are adopted as the survival time of mock satellite galaxies. We build mock galaxy samples from halo merger data of the Horizon Run 4 $N$-body simulation from $z = 12-0$. We compare group properties and two-point correlation functions (2pCFs) of mock galaxies with those of volume-limited SDSS galaxies, with $r$-band absolute magnitudes of $\mathcal{M}_r -…
Galaxy mergers drive enhancements in ionization states
Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota（明尼苏达大学天体物理研究所）；Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Missouri-Kansas City（密苏里堪萨斯城大学物理与天文系）；Missouri Institute for Defense & Energy（密苏里国防与能源研究所）
Galaxy Clustering Can Reveal Host-Galaxy Properties of Binary Black Hole Mergers
Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU), Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学理学研究系早期宇宙研究中心）；TAPIR, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院 TAPIR）；Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学理学研究系）；Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Chiba University（千叶大学理学研究系物理学科）
Gas Accretion versus BH Merger driven Growth Modes of Supermassive Black Holes and Implications for the Little Red Dots
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste (OATs)（意大利国家天体物理研究所（INAF）- 的里雅斯特天文台（OATs））；Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas - Universidade Federal do ABC（自然与人类科学中心 - 圣保罗联邦ABC大学）；Núcleo de Astrofísica - Universidade Cidade de São Paulo（天体物理学核心 - 圣保罗城市大学）
Dual AGN are important for understanding galaxy-merger-triggered fueling of black holes and hierarchical growth of structures. The least explored type of dual AGN are those associated with mergers of two dwarf galaxies. According to observations and cosmological simulations, dwarf galaxies are the most abundant type of galaxies in the early Universe and the galaxy merger rate is dominated by dwarfs. However, these mergers are generally too distant to be directly observed, and low-redshift dwarf-dwarf merger-related dual AGN are notoriously hard to find. In this paper, we present the first resu…
Tidal torques from a binary black hole (BHBH) empty out the central regions in any circumbinary gaseous accretion disk. The balance between tidal torques and viscosity maintain the inner edge of the disk at a radius r ~ 1.5a -- 2a, where a is the binary semimajor axis. Eventually, the inspiraling binary decouples from disk and merges, leaving behind a central hollow ("donut hole") in the disk orbiting the remnant black hole. We present a simple, time-dependent, Newtonian calculation that follows the secular (viscous) evolution of the disk as it fills up the hollow down to the black hole innerm…
We investigate the properties of the host galaxies of compact binary mergers across cosmic time, by means of population-synthesis simulations combined with galaxy catalogues from the EAGLE suite. We analyze the merger rate per galaxy of binary neutron stars (BNSs), black hole--neutron star binaries (BHNSs) and binary black holes (BBHs) from redshift zero up to redshift six. The binary merger rate per galaxy strongly correlates with the stellar mass of the host galaxy at any redshift considered here. This correlation is significantly steeper for BNSs than for both BHNSs and BBHs. Moreover, we f…
