Galaxy mergers play a crucial role in galaxy evolution. However, the correlation between mergers and the local environment of galaxies is not fully understood. We aim to address the question of whether galaxy mergers prefer denser or less dense environments by quantifying the spatial clustering of mergers and non-mergers. We use two different indicators to classify mergers and non-mergers - classification based on a deep learning technique ($f$) and non-parametric measures of galaxy morphology, Gini-$M_{20}$ ($g$). We used a set of galaxy samples in the redshift range $0.1 < z < 0.15$ from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey with a stellar mass cut of $\log (M_{\star}/M_{\odot} ) > 9.5$. We measured and compared the two-point correlation function (2pCF) of mergers and non-mergers classified using the two merger indicators $f$ and $g$. We measured the marked correlation function (MCF), in which the galaxies are weighted by $f$ to probe the environmental dependence of galaxy mergers. We do not observe a statistically significant difference between the clustering strengths of mergers and non-mergers obtained using 2pCF. However, using the MCF measurements with $f$ as a mark, we observe an anti-correlation between the likelihood of a galaxy being a merger and its environment. Our results emphasise the advantage of MCF over 2pCF in probing the environmental correlations. Based on the MCF measurements, we conclude that the galaxy mergers prefer to occur in the under-dense environments on scales $> 50 \, h^{-1} \mathrm{kpc}$ of the large-scale structure (LSS). We attribute this observation to the high relative velocities of galaxies in the densest environments that prevent them from merging.
High resolution (0.4 arcsec) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Cycle 0 observations of HCO+(4-3) and HCN(4-3) toward a mid-stage infrared bright merger VV114 have revealed compact nuclear (<200 pc) and extended (3 - 4 kpc) dense gas distribution across the eastern part of the galaxy pair. We find a significant enhancement of HCN(4-3) emission in an unresolved compact and broad (290km/s) component found in the eastern nucleus of VV114, and we suggest dense gas associated with the surrounding material around an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), with a mass upper limit of < 4 x 10^…
Using a new, high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of a Milky Way-type (MW-type) galaxy, we explore how a merger-rich assembly history affects the mass budget of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH). We examine a MW-mass halo at the present epoch whose evolution is characterized by several major mergers to isolate the importance of merger history on black hole accretion. This study is an extension of Bellovary et. al. 2013, which analyzed the accretion of high mass, high redshift galaxies and their central black holes, and found that the gas content of the central black ho…
Mass Distribution of Binary Black Hole Mergers from Young and Old Dense Star Clusters
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学理论天体物理研究所）；David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学大卫·邓普克天文与天体物理系）；Department of Physics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学物理系）；Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校天文与天体物理系）；Department of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University（麦克马斯特大学物理与天文系）
Hierarchical triples are expected to be produced by the frequent binary-mediated interactions in the cores of globular clusters. In some of these triples, the tertiary companion can drive the inner binary to merger following large eccentricity oscillations, as a result of the eccentric Kozai-Lidov mechanism. In this paper, we study the dynamics and merger rates of black hole (BH) hierarchical triples, formed via binary--binary encounters in the CMC Cluster Catalog, a suite of cluster simulations with present-day properties representative of the Milky Way's globular clusters. We compare the pro…
We present the 3 mm wavelength spectra of 28 local galaxy merger remnants obtained with the Large Millimeter Telescope. Fifteen molecular lines from 13 different molecular species and isotopologues were identified, and 21 out of 28 sources were detected in one or more molecular lines. On average, the line ratios of the dense gas tracers, such as HCN (1-0) and HCO$^{+}$(1-0), to $^{13}$CO (1-0) are 3-4 times higher in ultra/luminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs) than in non-LIRGs in our sample. These high line ratios could be explained by the deficiency of $^{13}$CO and high dense gas fractions s…
Young star clusters like R136 in the Large Magellanic Cloud and NGC 3603, Westerlund 1, and 2 in the Milky Way are dynamically more evolved than expected based on their current relaxation times. In particular, the combination of a high degree of mass segregation, a relatively low central density, and the large number of massive runaway stars in their vicinity are hard to explain with the monolithic formation of these clusters. Young star clusters can achieve such a mature dynamical state if they formed through the mergers of a number of less massive clusters. The shorter relaxation times of le…
The detection of gravitational waves emitted during a neutron star - black hole merger and the associated electromagnetic counterpart will provide a wealth of information about stellar evolution nuclear matter, and General Relativity. While the theoretical framework about neutron star - black hole binaries formed in isolation is well established, the picture is loosely constrained for those forming via dynamical interactions. Here, we use N-body simulations to show that mergers forming in globular and nuclear clusters could display distinctive marks compared to isolated mergers, namely larger …
We introduce the `Illustris zoom simulation project', which allows the study of selected galaxies forming in the $Λ$CDM cosmology with a 40 times better mass resolution than in the parent large-scale hydrodynamical Illustris simulation. We here focus on the starburst properties of the gas in four cosmological simulations of major mergers. The galaxies in our high-resolution zoom runs exhibit a bursty mode of star formation with gas consumption timescales 10 times shorter than for the normal star formation mode. The strong bursts are only present in the simulations with the highest resolution, …
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…
Dense stellar systems such as globular clusters and dense nuclear clusters are the breeding ground of sources of gravitational waves for the advanced detectors LIGO and Virgo. These systems deserve a close study to estimate rates and parameter distribution. This is not an easy task, since the evolution of a dense stellar cluster involves the integration of $N$ bodies with high resolution in time and space and including hard binaries and their encounters and, in the case of gravitational waves (GWs), one needs to take into account important relativistic corrections. In this work we present the …
Black hole mergers from dense star clusters with realistic binary populations
Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), Northwestern University（西北大学跨学科天体物理探索与研究中心）；Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校天文与天体物理学系）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University（西北大学物理与天文学系）；Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics（加拿大理论天体物理研究所）
使用Cluster Monte Carlo代码模拟24个致密星团，结合观测约束的双星分布，预测动态组装、原初双星和层级并合形成的双黑洞并合率、质量与自旋，再现LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA观测的关键特征。
Using a set of zoomed-in cosmological simulations of high-redshift progenitors of massive galaxies, we isolate and trace the history of gas that is accreted by central supermassive black holes. We determine the origins of the accreted gas, in terms of whether it entered the galaxy during a merger event or was smoothly accreted. Furthermore, we designate whether the smoothly accreted gas is accreted via a cold flow or is shocked upon entry into the halo. For moderate-mass (10^6 - 10^7 Msun) black holes at z ~ 4, there is a preference to accrete cold flow gas than gas of shocked or merger origin…
We present a comprehensive suite of high-resolution (parsec-scale), idealised (non-cosmological) galaxy merger simulations (24 runs, stellar mass ratio ~2.5:1) to investigate the connection between interaction-induced star formation and the evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM) in various temperature-density regimes. We use the GIZMO code and the second version of the 'Feedback in Realistic Environments' model (FIRE-2), which captures the multi-phase structure of the ISM. Our simulations are designed to represent galaxy mergers in the local Universe. In this work, we focus on the 'galaxy-…
We study supermassive black holes (BHs) in merging galaxies, using a suite of hydrodynamical simulations with very high spatial (~10 pc) and temporal (~1 Myr) resolution, where we vary the initial mass ratio, the orbital configuration, and the gas fraction. (i) We address the question of when and why, during a merger, increased BH accretion occurs, quantifying gas inflows and BH accretion rates. (ii) We also quantify the relative effectiveness in inducing AGN activity of merger-related versus secular-related causes, by studying different stages of the encounter: the stochastic (or early) stage…
We use a sample of $z=0$ galaxies visually classified as slow rotators (SRs) in the EAGLE hydrodynamical simulations to explore the effect of galaxy mergers on their formation, characterise their intrinsic galaxy properties, and study the connection between quenching and kinematic transformation. SRs that have had major or minor mergers (mass ratios $\ge 0.3$ and $0.1-0.3$, respectively) tend to have a higher triaxiality parameter and ex-situ stellar fractions than those that had exclusively very minor mergers or formed in the absence of mergers ("no-merger" SRs). No-merger SRs are more compac…
Understanding the host galaxy properties of stellar binary black hole (SBBH) mergers is important for revealing the origin of the SBBH gravitational-wave sources detected by advanced LIGO and helpful for identifying their electromagnetic counterparts. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of the host galaxy properties of SBBHs by implementing semi-analytical recipes for SBBH formation and merger into cosmological galaxy formation model. If the time delay between SBBH formation and merger ranges from $\la$\,Gyr to the Hubble time, SBBH mergers at redshift $z\la0.3$ occur preferentially in bi…
The recent discovery of high-redshift (z > 6) supermassive black holes (SMBH) favors the formation of massive seed BHs in protogalaxies. One possible scenario is formation of massive stars ~ 1e3-1e4 Msun via runaway stellar collisions in a dense cluster, leaving behind massive BHs without significant mass loss. We study the pulsational instability of massive stars with the zero-age main-sequence (ZAMS) mass Mzams/Msun = 300-3000 and metallicity Z/Zsun = 0-0.1, and discuss whether or not pulsation-driven mass loss prevents massive BH formation. In the MS phase, the pulsational instability excit…
RIGEL: Feedback-regulated cloud-scale star formation efficiency in a simulated dwarf galaxy merger
Tsinghua University（清华大学）；University of Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；INAF, Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory Bologna（意大利国家天体物理研究所博洛尼亚天文与空间科学观测站）；Institute for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University（清华大学高等研究院）；Universität Heidelberg（海德堡大学）；The University of Texas at Dallas（德克萨斯大学达拉斯分校）；York University（约克大学）；Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学）
We model the intensity of emission lines from the CO molecule, based on hydrodynamic simulations of spirals, mergers, and high-redshift galaxies with very high resolutions (3pc and 10^3 Msun) and detailed models for the phase-space structure of the interstellar gas including shock heating, stellar feedback processes and galactic winds. The simulations are analyzed with a Large Velocity Gradient (LVG) model to compute the local emission in various molecular lines in each resolution element, radiation transfer and opacity effects, and the intensity emerging from galaxies, to generate synthetic s…
Minor mergers are important processes contributing significantly to how galaxies evolve across the age of the Universe. Their impact on supermassive black hole growth and star formation is profound. The detailed study of dense molecular gas in galaxies provides an important test of the validity of the relation between star formation rate and HCN luminosity on different galactic scales. We use observations of HCN, HCO+1-0 and CO3-2 to study the dense gas properties in the Medusa merger. We calculate the brightness temperature ratios and use them in conjunction with a non-LTE radiative line tran…
We present new high-resolution ALMA (13CO J=1-0 and J= 2-1) and CARMA (12CO and 13CO J=1-0) observations of two Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs): Arp 55 and NGC 2623. The new data are complementary to published and archival Submillimeter Array observations of 12CO J=2-1 and J=3-2. We perform a Bayesian likelihood non-local thermodynamic equilibrium analysis to constrain the molecular gas physical conditions such as temperature, column and volume densities and the [12CO]/[13CO] abundance ratio. For Arp 55, an early/intermediate staged merger, the line measurements are consistent with cold (~1…
Recent N-body simulations predict that large numbers of stellar black holes (BHs) could remain bound to globular clusters (GCs) at present, and merging BH--BH binaries are produced dynamically in significant numbers. We systematically vary "standard" assumptions made by numerical simulations related to, e.g., BH formation, stellar winds, binary properties of high-mass stars, and IMF within existing uncertainties, and study the effects on the evolution of the structural properties of GCs, and the BHs in GCs. We find that variations in initial assumptions can set otherwise identical initial clus…
In a star cluster with a sufficiently large escape velocity, black holes (BHs) that are produced by BH mergers can be retained, dynamically form new BH binaries, and merge again. This process can repeat several times and lead to significant mass growth. In this paper, we calculate the mass of the largest BH that can be formed through repeated mergers of stellar seed BHs and determine how its value depends on the physical properties of the host cluster. We adopt an analytical model in which the energy generated by the black hole binaries in the cluster core is assumed to be regulated by the pro…
We present the first self-consistent prediction for the distribution of formation timescales for close Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) pairs following galaxy mergers. Using ROMULUS25, the first large-scale cosmological simulation to accurately track the orbital evolution of SMBHs within their host galaxies down to sub-kpc scales, we predict an average formation rate density of close SMBH pairs of 0.013 cMpc^-3 Gyr^-1. We find that it is relatively rare for galaxy mergers to result in the formation of close SMBH pairs with sub-kpc separation and those that do form are often the result of Gyrs of…
We have performed N-body simulations of globular clusters (GCs) in order to estimate a detection rate of mergers of Binary stellar-mass Black Holes (BBHs) by means of gravitational wave (GW) observatories. For our estimate, we have only considered mergers of BBHs which escape from GCs (BBH escapers). BBH escapers merge more quickly than BBHs inside GCs because of their small semi-major axes. N-body simulation can not deal with a GC with the number of stars N ~ 10^6 due to its high calculation cost. We have simulated dynamical evolution of small-N clusters (10^4 <~ N <~ 10^5), and have extrapol…
We used the SPIRE/FTS instrument aboard the Herschel Space Observatory (HSO) to obtain the Spectral Line Energy Distributions (SLEDs) of CO from J=4-3 to J=13-12 of Arp 193 and NGC 6240, two classical merger/starbursts selected from our molecular line survey of local Luminous Infrared Galaxies (LIRGs: L_{IR}>=10^{11} L_{sol}). The high-J CO SLEDs are then combined with ground-based low-J CO, {13}CO, HCN, HCO+, CS line data and used to probe the thermal and dynamical states of their large molecular gas reservoirs. We find the two CO SLEDs strongly diverging from J=4-3 onwards, with NGC6240 havi…
Under the $Λ$ cold dark matter ($Λ$CDM) cosmological models, massive galaxies are expected to be larger in denser environments through frequent hierarchical mergers with other galaxies. Yet, observational studies of low-redshift early-type galaxies have shown no such trend, standing as a puzzle to solve during the past decade. We analyzed 73,116 early-type galaxies at $0.1\leq z < 0.15$, adopting a robust nonparametric size measurement technique and extending the analysis to many massive galaxies. We find for the first time that local early-type galaxies heavier than $10^{11.2}M_{\odot}$ show …
We investigate the properties of young massive clusters (YMCs) in a galaxy-galaxy merger remnant by analyzing the data obtained by a gas rich major merger simulations in Matsui et al. 2012. We found that the YMCs are distributed at a few $\rm kpc$ and at $\sim 10~{\rm kpc}$ from the galactic center, in other words, there are two components of their distribution. The former are formed in filamentary and turbulent gas generated at a few $\rm kpc$ from the center because of galaxy encounters, and the latter are formed in tidal tails which are far from the center. The YMCs are much less concentrat…
Evolution of Nuclear Star Cluster in Dwarf Galaxy through Mergers and In-Situ Star Formation
Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学天体物理实验室，哥伦比亚大学）；Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute（平顿研究所计算天体物理中心）；Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University（首尔大学物理与天文学系理论物理中心）；Department of Astronomy, Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学天文学系）；Department of Biophysics, University of Wisconsin-Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校生物物理学系）；Institute for Data Innovation in Science, Seoul National University（首尔大学科学数据创新研究所）；Seoul National University Astronomy Research Center（首尔大学天文研究中心）；Synopsys Korea Inc.（新思科技韩国有限公司）
Using the Horizon-AGN simulation data, we study the relative role of mergers and environmental effects in shaping the spin of early-type galaxies (ETGs) after $z \simeq 1$. We follow the spin evolution of 10,037 color-selected ETGs more massive than 10$^{10} \rm \, M_{\odot}$ that are divided into four groups: cluster centrals (3%), cluster satellites (33%), group centrals (5%), and field ETGs (59%). We find a strong mass dependence of the slow rotator fraction, $f_{\rm SR}$, and the mean spin of massive ETGs. Although we do not find a clear environmental dependence of $f_{\rm SR}$, a weak tre…
During galaxy mergers, gas and dust is driven towards the centers of merging galaxies, triggering enhanced star formation and supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth. Theory predicts that this heightened activity peaks at SMBH separations $<$20 kpc; if sufficient material accretes onto one or both of the SMBHs for them to become observable as active galactic nuclei (AGNs) during this phase, they are known as offset and dual AGNs, respectively. To better study these systems, we have built the ACS-AGN Merger Catalog, a large catalog ($N=220$) of uniformly selected offset and dual AGN observed by $…
Tidal features around simulated groups and cluster galaxies: Enhancement and suppression of merger events through environment in LSST-like mock observations
We apply the idea that dense stellar systems in the central region of galaxies are formed via globular cluster mergers to the formation of the nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way, where a massive black hole is present. Our high precision N-body simulations show a good fit to the observational characteristics of the Milky Way nuclear cluster, giving further reliability to the so called migratory model for the formation of compact systems in the inner galaxy regions keywords galaxies: nuclei - galaxies: black holes - galaxies: globular clusters - galaxies: Milky Way - N-body: simulations
