Dwarf galaxies in voids: Suppressing star formation with photo-heating

Abstract

We study structure formation in cosmological void regions using high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations. Despite being significantly underdense, voids are populated abundantly with small dark matter halos which should appear as dwarf galaxies if their star formation is not suppressed significantly. We here investigate to which extent the cosmological UV-background photo-evaporates baryons out of halos of dwarf galaxies, and thereby limits their cooling and star formation rates. Assuming a Haardt & Madau UV-background with reionisation at redshift z=6, our samples of simulated galaxies show that halos with masses below a characteristic mass of M_c(z=0) = 6.5 x 10^9 h^{-1} M_sun are baryon-poor, but in general not completely empty, because baryons that are in the condensed cold phase or are already locked up in stars resist evaporation. In halos with mass M < M_c, we find that photo-heating suppresses further cooling of gas. The redshift and UV-background dependent characteristic mass M_c(z) can be understood from the equilibrium temperature between heating and cooling at a characteristic overdensity of δ~ 1000. If a halo is massive enough to compress gas to this density despite the presence of the UV background, gas is free to `enter' the condensed phase and cooling continues in the halo, otherwise it stalls. By analysing the mass accretion histories of dwarf galaxies in voids, we show that they can build up a significant amount of condensed mass at early times before the epoch of reionisation. Later on, the amount of mass in this phase remains roughly constant, but the masses of the dark matter halos continue to increase. (abridged)