The VIVA Survey (VLA Imaging of Virgo in Atomic gas) is an imaging survey in 48 spiral or spiral-like galaxies, and five irregular systems. These 53 systems cover a wide range in masses and are located throughout the cluster, from the dense core to the low-density outer parts. They span a range in star formation properties and include the best candidates for strong ram-pressure interactions. © VIVA team
Models of the large-scale structure of galaxies in the Universe suffer from serious limitations, when artificial boundaries are imposed at the virial radius of the dark matter halo. As MPA scientists demonstrate, environmental effects vary smoothly across the traditionally adopted halo boundary and need to be taken into account even in low-density environments.
Our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies has
improved significantly during the past few decades. On the theoretical
side, numerical simulations have been key to elucidating how large-scale
structure in the dark matter component of the Universe emerges in the
form of a cosmic web of filaments, sheets, and clusters of galaxies
surrounding large under-dense regions, or voids. Galaxies form at the
intersections of filaments and sheets, where gas reaches high enough
densities so that particle interactions cause it to cool, to lose
pressure support, and to collapse to form stars.
Computer simulations that include the hydrodynamics of gas are
computationally very expensive. A well-defined, computationally
efficient way to apply the theory of galaxy formation to a very large
volume of the Universe is to use semi-analytical models. Such a
semi-analytical model applies a set of equations describing the main
physical processes influencing galaxies to a set of halo merger trees
extracted from the simulation. These halo merger trees document, which
collapsed structures, or halos, merge with each other as structures in
the Universe build up under the influence of gravitational forces.
Combining these with the semi-analytic models allows predictions for the
observed properties of galaxies as a function of cosmic epoch.
After the gas has cooled and collapsed under gravity to form a
centrifugally supported disk galaxy within a dark matter halo similar to
our own Milky Way, environmental processes can influence the subsequent
evolution of the system. Direct observations have shown that the
properties of galaxies depend on the environment in which they reside.
The morphology-density relation derives from the observed fact that
galaxies in massive clusters are more likely to be non-star-forming (or
quenched). In such dense environments, gravitational tidal effects on
galaxies become strong and this strips dark matter and stars from their
outer regions. In physics, a body moving through a fluid medium is
subject to ram pressure, where the relative bulk motion of the fluid
exerts a drag force on the body. In galaxy groups and clusters,
ram-pressure forces become strong enough to overcome the gravitational
binding energy of the gas, so that the gas is stripped out of the galaxy
and star formation ceases.
Velocity distribution of particles in the background shell of a satellite galaxy in the Millennium Simulation, projected along each of the three spatial dimensions. There are about 50,000 particles in the shell. The colours show the fraction of particles with a certain velocity. Cyan circles denote the velocity of the galaxy; white circles denote the derived mean velocity of the local background after decontamination. The radii of the solid circles are equal to the velocity dispersion of the two modelled Gaussians, while dashed circles show twice that value. The fraction of contaminant particles in the shell is 0.22.
© MPA
An important question that has largely been neglected up to now is the
radius from the cluster or group centre where these effects start to
become important. Most analytic and semi-analytical models of galaxy
formation, including our in-house model, L-Galaxies,
adopts the virial radius as the boundary beyond which environmental
effects are no longer important. However, a number of observational
studies have suggested that environmental processes may influence gas
and star formation in galaxies well beyond this radius. For example,
so-called galactic conformity effects, the observed large-scale
correlation between star formation in neighbouring galaxies, extends out
to distances of several megaparsec, which is much larger than the
virial radius of even the most massive clusters. In addition,
hydrodynamical simulations suggest that the shock-heated gas of a dark
matter halo can extend beyond its virial radius.
Environmental properties of galaxies in the Millennium Simulation within three times the virial radius of a massive halo. Each circle shows a galaxy, in total 582 galaxies are visible. The colour of each circle corresponds to the local background density (in units of the mean density of the universe, see colour bar at the bottom). The arrows illustrate the velocity of each galaxy (blue) and the bulk velocity of its local background (purple). The dashed black circle corresponds to the virial radius for the main halo. The size of circles is equal to the subhalo size for central galaxies and larger satellites, smaller satellite galaxies are simply shown as dots. While galaxies tend to be smaller in the denser inner region, there is no abrupt change in density or bulk velocity at any radius.
© MPA
A realistic and accurate model of galaxy formation and evolution
needs to contain prescriptions for environmental effects for all
galaxies in a simulation. We have developed a new way to measure the
properties of the Local Background Environment (LBE), including its
density and bulk motion, for every galaxy in the Millennium Simulation.
The local background properties are measured in a spherical shell
around each galaxy. Care must be taken to deconvolve simulation
particles that are truly part of the background from those which are
gravitationally bound to the galaxy. As an example, Figure 2 shows the
velocity distribution of the particles in the shell of one of the
galaxies in the simulation. This is formed by two Gaussians, therefore,
the deconvolution of the particles (into background and bound particles)
is possible using Gaussian mixture modelling techniques.
In our work, we have analysed the properties of the local background
as a function of distance from the group/cluster centre. We show that
there is no abrupt change in density or bulk velocity at any radius,
indicating that environmental effects vary smoothly across the
traditionally adopted halo boundary. Preliminary results indicate that
gas stripping may also play an unexpectedly important role in some
galaxies in low-density environments, particularly those accelerated by a
previous, close encounter with another galaxy, or those falling through
parts of the cosmic web. In future work, we will explore the
implications of these findings for cosmological studies of galaxy
surveys, as well as for models for the formation and evolution of galaxy
properties.
Authors
Ayromlou, Mohammadreza
PhD student
Phone: 2248
Email: ayromlou@mpa-garching.mpg.de
Room: 144
Kauffmann, Guinevere
Director
Phone: 2013
Email: gamk@mpa-garching.mpg.de
Room: 121
Original publication
1. Ayromlou at al.
A New Method to Quantify Environmental Effects and Ram-Pressure Stripping in Cosmological Simulations
in preparation
More Information
VIVA survey
L-Galaxies - Semi-analytical model of galaxy formation developed at MPA
Millennium Simulation - Simulation of the large-scale structure evolution of the Universe
