arXiv subjects

E. Athanassoula

Publications and source records attributed to E. Athanassoula.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Tidally induced bars in gas-rich dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way

Bars in galaxies may form not only through instability, but also as a result of an interaction with another galaxy. In particular, they may appear in disky dwarf galaxies interacting with Milky Way-like galaxies. Here we report the results of N-body/SPH simulations of such dwarfs orbiting in the static potential of a larger galaxy. We used several models of the dwarf galaxy, all of the same mass, but covering a large range of gas fractions: 0, 30 and 70%. We also tested the impact of subgrid star formation processes. In all cases bars of similar length formed in the stellar disk of the dwarfs at the first pericenter passage. However, unexpectedly, the gaseous component remained approximately axisymmetric and unaffected by the bar potential. The bar properties did not change significantly between two consecutive pericenters. The impact of the later encounters with the host depends strongly on the exact orientation of the bar at the pericenter. When the bar is spun up by the tidal force torque, it is also shortened. Conversely, if it is slowed down, it gets longer. In the models with a low gas fraction the bars were more pronounced and survived until the end of the simulations, while in the dwarfs with a high gas fraction the bars were destroyed after the second or third pericenter passage. In terms of the ratio of the corotation radius to the bar length, the bars are slow, and remain so independently of the encounters with the host.

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arXiv2018

SDSS-IV MaNGA: pattern speeds of barred galaxies

The MaNGA project has obtained IFU data for several thousand nearby galaxies, including barred galaxies. With the two dimensional spectral and kinematic information provided by IFUs, we can measure the pattern speed of a barred galaxy, which determines the bar dynamics. We apply the non-parametric method proposed by Tremaine \& Weinberg to estimate the bar pattern speed for 53 barred galaxies, making this the largest sample studied so far in this way. Our sample is selected from the MaNGA first public data release as part of SDSS Data Release 13 according mainly to the axis ratio and position angle difference between the bar and disc, while kinematic data is from the later SDSS Data Release 14. We have used both the photometric position angle from the photometric image and the kinematic position angle from the stellar velocity map to derive the pattern speed. Combining three independent bar length measurements and the circular velocity from Jeans Anisotropic modelling (JAM), we also determine the dimensionless ratio $\cal{R}$ of the corotation radius to the bar length. We find that the galaxy's position angle is the main uncertainty in determining the bar pattern speed. The kinematic position angle leads to fewer ultrafast bars than the photometric position angle, and this could be due to the method of measuring the kinematic position angle. We study the dependence of $\cal{R}$ values on galaxy properties such as the dark matter fraction from JAM modelling and the stellar age and metallicity from stellar population synthesis (SPS). A positive correlation between the bar length and bar strength is found: the longer the bar, the stronger the bar. However, no other significant correlations are found. This may result from errors in deriving the $\cal{R}$ values or from the complex formation and slowdown processes of galactic bars.

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arXiv2018

Unveiling the environment and faint features of the isolated galaxy CIG 96 with deep optical and HI observations

Asymmetries in HI in galaxies are often caused by the interaction with close companions, making isolated galaxies an ideal framework to study secular evolution. The AMIGA project has demonstrated that isolated galaxies show the lowest level of asymmetry in their HI integrated profiles, yet some present significant asymmetries. CIG 96 (NGC 864) is a representative case reaching a 16% level. Our aim is to investigate the HI asymmetries of this spiral galaxy and what processes have triggered the star-forming regions observed in the XUV pseudoring. We performed deep optical observations at CAHA 1.23m, 2.2m and VST telescopes. We reach surface brightness (SB) limits of mu_2.2m = 27.5 mag arcsec-2 (Cous R) and mu_VST = 28.7mag arcsec-2 (r) that show the XUV pseudoring of the galaxy in detail. Additionally, a wavelet filtering of the HI data cube from our deep observations with E/VLA telescope allowed us to reach a column density of N_HI = 8.9x10^18 cm -2 (5sigma) (28"x28" beam), lower than in any isolated galaxy. We confirm that the HI extends farther than 4xr_25 in all directions. Furthermore, we detect for the first time two gaseous structures (10^6 Msol) in the outskirts. The g-r colour index image from 1.23m shows extremely blue colours in certain regions of the pseudoring where N_HI>8.5x10^20 cm-2 , whereas the rest show red colours. Galactic cirrus contaminate the field, setting an unavoidable detection limit at 28.5mag arcsec-2 (r). We detect no stellar link within 1degx1deg or gaseous link within 40'x40' between CIG 96 and any companion. The isolation criteria rule out interactions with other similar-sized galaxies for at least 2.7Gyr. Using existing stellar evolution models, the age of the pseudoring is estimated at 1Gyr or older. Undetected previously accreted companions and cold gas accretion remain as the main hypothesis to explain the optical pseudoring and HI features of CIG 96.

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arXiv2018

Tidally induced morphology of M33 in hydrodynamical simulations of its recent interaction with M31

We present a hydrodynamical model of M33 and its recent interaction with M31. This scenario was previously proposed in the literature in order to explain the distorted gaseous and stellar disks of M33, as well as the increased star formation rate in both objects around 2 Gyr ago. We used an orbit integration scheme to find which estimate of the transverse velocity of M31 more favors the interaction scenario and then tried to reproduce it in our simulations. M33 was modeled as a stellar and gaseous disk embedded in a live dark-matter halo, while M31 was approximated only with a live dark halo. In the simulations the two galaxies passed each other with a pericenter distance of 37 kpc. Tides excited a two-armed spiral structure in the M33 disk, which is found to be the predominant spiral signal in the observed galaxy and has been long known as a feature easily induced by tidal interactions. We found that the gaseous warp produced by the interaction did not resemble enough the observed one and we performed an additional simulation including the hot gas halo of M31 to show that this feature can be properly reproduced by tidal forces and ram pressure stripping acting simultaneously on the gaseous disk. In addition to the spiral arms, tidal forces produced the stellar stream similar to the observed one and triggered a star formation burst at similar radii as it is observed.

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arXiv2018

French SKA White Book - The French Community towards the Square Kilometre Array

The "Square Kilometre Array" (SKA) is a large international radio telescope project characterised, as suggested by its name, by a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometre, and consisting of several interferometric arrays to observe at metric and centimetric wavelengths. The deployment of the SKA will take place in two sites, in South Africa and Australia, and in two successive phases. From its Phase 1, the SKA will be one of the most formidable scientific machines ever deployed by mankind, and by far the most impressive in terms of data throughput and required computing power. With the participation of almost 200 authors from forty research institutes and six private companies, the publication of this French SKA white paper illustrates the strong involvement in the SKA project of the French astronomical community and of a rapidly growing number of major scientific and technological players in the fields of Big Data, high performance computing, energy production and storage, as well as system integration.

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arXiv2018

Using N-body simulations to understand the chemo-dynamical evolution of the inner Milky Way

I present examples of how chemo-dynamical N-body simulations can help understanding the structure and evolution of the inner Galaxy. Such simulations reproduce the observed links between kinematics, morphology and chemistry in the bar/bulge region and explain them by the self-consistent cohabitation of a number of components. Galactic archaeology, applied to simulation snapshots, explains the sequence in which the stars of the various components were formed. The thick disc stars form earlier than those of the thin disc and in a much shorter time scale. The bar in the thick disc is horizontally thicker than that of the thin disc and has a different vertical morphology. The Galaxy's inner disc scalelength is much smaller than what is expected from nearby galaxies of similar stellar mass.

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arXiv2017

An Overview of the MHONGOOSE Survey: Observing Nearby Galaxies with MeerKAT

MHONGOOSE is a deep survey of the neutral hydrogen distribution in a representative sample of 30 nearby disk and dwarf galaxies with HI masses from 10^6 to ~10^{11} M_sun, and luminosities from M_R ~ -12 to M_R ~ -22. The sample is selected to uniformly cover the available range in log(M_HI). Our extremely deep observations, down to HI column density limits of well below 10^{18} cm^{-2} - or a few hundred times fainter than the typical HI disks in galaxies - will directly detect the effects of cold accretion from the intergalactic medium and the links with the cosmic web. These observations will be the first ever to probe the very low-column density neutral gas in galaxies at these high resolutions. Combination with data at other wavelengths, most of it already available, will enable accurate modelling of the properties and evolution of the mass components in these galaxies and link these with the effects of environment, dark matter distribution, and other fundamental properties such as halo mass and angular momentum. MHONGOOSE can already start addressing some of the SKA-1 science goals and will provide a comprehensive inventory of the processes driving the transformation and evolution of galaxies in the nearby universe at high resolution and over 5 orders of magnitude in column density. It will be a Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey that will be unsurpassed until the advent of the SKA, and can serve as a highly visible, lasting statement of MeerKAT's capabilities.

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arXiv2017

Morphology and enhanced star formation in a Cartwheel-like ring galaxy

We use hydrodynamical simulations of a Cartwheel-like ring galaxy, modelled as a nearly head-on collision of a small companion with a larger disc galaxy, to probe the evolution of the gaseous structures and flows, and to explore the physical conditions setting the star formation activity. Star formation is first quenched by tides as the companion approaches, before being enhanced shortly after the collision. The ring ploughs the disc material as it radially extends, and almost simultaneously depletes its stellar and gaseous reservoir into the central region, through the spokes, and finally dissolve 200 Myr after the collision. Most of star formation first occurs in the ring before this activity is transferred to the spokes and then the nucleus. We thus propose that the location of star formation traces the dynamical stage of ring galaxies, and could help constrain their star formation histories. The ring hosts tidal compression associated with strong turbulence. This compression yields an azimuthal asymmetry, with maxima reached in the side furthest away from the nucleus, which matches the star formation activity distribution in our models and in observed ring systems. The interaction triggers the formation of star clusters significantly more massive than before the collision, but less numerous than in more classical galaxy interactions. The peculiar geometry of Cartwheel-like objects thus yields a star (cluster) formation activity comparable to other interacting objects, but with notable second order differences in the nature of turbulence, the enhancement of the star formation rate, and the number of massive clusters formed.

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arXiv2017

How do spiral arm contrasts relate to bars, disk breaks and other fundamental galaxy properties?

We investigate how the properties of spiral arms relate to other fundamental galaxy properties, including bars and disc breaks. We use previously published measurements of those properties, and our own measurements of arm and bar contrasts for a large sample of galaxies, using $3.6 \mathrm{μm}$ images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G). Flocculent galaxies are clearly distinguished from other spiral arm classes, especially by their lower stellar mass and surface density. Multi-armed and grand-design galaxies are similar in most of their fundamental parameters, excluding some bar properties and the bulge-to-total ratio. Based on these results, we revisit the sequence of spiral arm classes, and discuss classical bulges as a necessary condition for standing spiral wave modes in grand-design galaxies. We find a strong correlation between bulge-to-total ratio and bar contrast, and a weaker correlation between arm and bar contrasts. Barred and unbarred galaxies exhibit similar arm contrasts, but the highest arm contrasts are found exclusively in barred galaxies. Interestingly, the bar contrast, and its increase from flocculent to grand-design galaxies, is systematically more significant than that of the arm contrast. We corroborate previous findings concerning a connection between bars and disc breaks. In particular, in grand-design galaxies the bar contrast correlates with the normalised disc break radius. This does not hold for other spiral arm classes or the arm contrast. Our measurements of arm and bar contrast and radial contrast profiles are publicly available.

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arXiv2017

Tidally induced bars in dwarf galaxies on different orbits around a Milky Way-like host

Bars in galaxies may develop through a global instability or due to an interaction with another system. We study bar formation in disky dwarf galaxies orbiting a Milky Way-like galaxy. We employ $N$-body simulations to study the impact of initial orbital parameters: the size of the dwarf galaxy orbit and the inclination of its disc with respect to the orbital plane. In all cases a bar develops in the center of the dwarf during the first pericenter on its orbit around the host. Between subsequent pericenter passages the bars are stable, but at the pericenters they are usually weakened and shortened. The initial properties and details of the further evolution of the bars depend heavily on the orbital configuration. We find that for the exactly prograde orientation, the strongest bar is formed for the intermediate-size orbit. On the tighter orbit, the disc is too disturbed and stripped to form a strong bar. On the wider orbit, the tidal interaction is too weak. The dependence on the disc inclination is such that weaker bars form in more inclined discs. The bars experience either a very weak buckling or none at all. We do not observe any secular evolution, possibly because the dwarfs are perturbed at each pericenter passage. The rotation speed of the bars can be classified as slow ($R_\mathrm{CR}/l_\mathrm{bar}\sim2-3$). We attribute this to the loss of a significant fraction of the disc's rotation during the encounter with the host galaxy.

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arXiv2017

Forming disc galaxies in major mergers: III. The effect of angular momentum on the radial density profiles of disc galaxies

We study the effect of angular momentum on the surface density profiles of disc galaxies, using high resolution simulations of major mergers whose remnants have downbending radial density profiles (type II). As described in the previous papers of this series, in this scenario, most of the disc mass is acquired after the collision via accretion from a hot gaseous halo. We find that the inner and outer disc scalelengths, as well as the break radius, correlate with the total angular momentum of the initial merging system, and are larger for high angular momentum systems. We follow the angular momentum redistribution in our simulated galaxies, and find that, like the mass, the disc angular momentum is acquired via accretion, i.e. to the detriment of the gaseous halo. Furthermore, high angular momentum systems give more angular momentum to their discs, which affects directly their radial density profile. Adding simulations of isolated galaxies to our sample, we find that the correlations are valid also for disc galaxies evolved in isolation. We show that the outer part of the disc at the end of the simulation is populated mainly by inside-out stellar migration, and that in galaxies with higher angular momentum, stars travel radially further out. This, however, does not mean that outer disc stars (in type II discs) were mostly born in the inner disc. Indeed, generally the break radius increases over time, and not taking this into account leads to overestimating the number of stars born in the inner disc.

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arXiv2017

Forming disc galaxies in major mergers II. The central mass concentration problem and a comparison of GADGET3 with GIZMO

Context: In a series of papers, we study the major merger of two disk galaxies in order to establish whether or not such a merger can produce a disc galaxy. Aims: Our aim here is to describe in detail the technical aspects of our numerical experiments. Methods: We discuss the initial conditions of our major merger, which consist of two protogalaxies on a collision orbit. We show that such merger simulations can produce a non-realistic central mass concentration, and we propose simple, parametric, AGN-like feedback as a solution to this problem. Our AGN-like feedback algorithm is very simple: at each time-step we take all particles whose local volume density is above a given threshold value and increase their temperature to a preset value. We also compare the GADGET3 and GIZMO codes, by applying both of them to the same initial conditions. Results: We show that the evolution of isolated protogalaxies resembles the evolution of disk galaxies, thus arguing that our protogalaxies are well suited for our merger simulations. We demonstrate that the problem with the unphysical central mass concentration in our merger simulations is further aggravated when we increase the resolution. We show that our AGN-like feedback removes this non-physical central mass concentration, and thus allows the formation of realistic bars. Note that our AGN-like feedback mainly affects the central region of a model, without significantly modifying the rest of the galaxy. We demonstrate that, in the context of our kind of simulation, GADGET3 gives results which are very similar to those obtained with the PSPH (density independent SPH) flavor of GIZMO. Moreover, in the examples we tried, the differences between the results of the two flavors of GIZMO, namely PSPH, and MFM (mesh-less algorithm) are similar to and, in some comparisons, larger than the differences between the results of GADGET3 and PSPH.

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arXiv2016

Dynamical modelling of galactic disc outskirts

I review briefly some dynamical models of structures in the outer parts of disc galaxies, including models of polar rings, tidal tails and bridges. I then discuss the density distribution in the outer parts of discs. For this, I compare observations to results of a model in which the disc galaxy is in fact the remnant of a major merger, and find good agreement. This comparison includes radial profiles of the projected surface density and of stellar age, as well as time evolution of the break radius and of the inner and outer disc scale lengths. I also compare the radial projected surface density profiles of dynamically motivated mono-age populations and find that, compared to older populations, younger ones have flatter density profiles in the inner region and steeper in the outer one. The break radius, however, does not vary with stellar age, again in good agreement with observations.

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arXiv2016

Metallicity-dependendent kinematics and morphology of the Milky Way bulge

We use N-body chemo-dynamic simulations to study the coupling between morphology, kinematics and metallicity of the bar/bulge region of our Galaxy. We make qualitative comparisons of our results with available observations and find very good agreement. We conclude that this region is complex, since it comprises several stellar components with different properties -- i.e. a boxy/peanut bulge, thin and thick disc components, and, to lesser extents, a disky pseudobulge, a stellar halo and a small classical bulge -- all cohabiting in dynamical equilibrium. Our models show strong links between kinematics and metallicity, or morphology and metallicity, as already suggested by a number of recent observations. We discuss and explain these links.

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arXiv2016

Constraining the dark matter content of NGC 1291 using hydrodynamic gas response simulations

We present a pilot study on the nearby massive barred galaxy NGC 1291, in which we use dynamical modelling to constrain the disc mass-to-light ratio (M/L), thus breaking the degeneracy between the baryonic and dark matter in its central regions. We use the gas, specifically the morphology of the dust lanes on the leading side of the bar, as a tracer of the underlying gravitational potential. We run a large number of hydrodynamic gas response simulations, in potentials obtained directly from near-infrared images of the galaxy, which have three free parameters: the M/L, the bar pattern speed and the height function. We explore the three-dimensional parameter space, by comparing the morphology of the shocks created in the gas response simulations with those of the observed dust lanes, and find the best-fitting models; these suggest that the M/L of NGC 1291 agrees with that predicted by stellar population synthesis models in the near-infrared ($\approx$0.6\,$M_{\odot}/L_{\odot}$), which leads to a borderline maximum disc for this galaxy. Furthermore, we find that the bar rotates fast, with a corotation radius which is $\leq$ 1.4 times the bar length.

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arXiv2016

Morpho-kinematics of z~1 galaxies probe the hierarchical scenario

We have studied a representative sample of intermediate-mass galaxies at z~1, observed by the kinematic survey KMOS3D. We have re-estimated the kinematical parameters from the published kinematic maps and analysed photometric data from HST to measure optical disk inclinations and PAs. We find that only half of the z~1 galaxies show kinematic properties consistent with rotating disks, using the same classification scheme than that adopted by the KMOS3D team. Because merger orbital motions can also brought rotation, we have also analysed galaxy morphologies from the available HST imagery. Combining these results to those from kinematics, it leads to a full morpho-kinematic classification. To test the robustness of the latter for disentangling isolated disks from mergers, we confronted the results with an analysis of pairs from the open-grism redshift survey 3D-HST. All galaxies found in pairs are affected by either kinematic and/or morphological perturbations. Conversely, all galaxies classified as virialized spirals are found to be isolated. A significant fraction (one fourth) of rotating disks classified from kinematics by the KMOS3D team are found in pairs, which further supports the need for a morpho-kinematic classification. It results that only one third of z~1 galaxies are isolated and virialized spirals, while 58% of them are likely involved in a merger sequence, from first approach to disk rebuilding. The later fraction is in good agreement with the results of semi-empirical ΛCDM models, supporting a merger-dominated hierarchical scenario as being the main driver of galaxy formation at least during the last 8 billion years.

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arXiv2016

Morphology and environment of galaxies with disc breaks in the S4G and NIRS0S

We study the surface brightness profiles of disc galaxies in the 3.6 micron images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4G) and K_s-band images from the Near Infrared S0-Sa galaxy Survey (NIRS0S). We particularly connect properties of single exponential (type I), downbending double exponential (type II), and upbending double exponential (type III) disc profile types, to structural components of galaxies by using detailed morphological classifications, and size measurements of rings and lenses. We also study how the local environment of the galaxies affects the profile types by calculating parameters describing the environmental density and the tidal interaction strength. We find that in majority of type II profiles the break radius is connected with structural components such as rings, lenses, and spirals. The exponential disc sections of all three profile types, when considered separately, follow the disc scaling relations. However, the outer discs of type II, and the inner discs of type III, are similar in scalelength to the single exponential discs. Although the different profile types have similar mean environmental parameters, the scalelengths of the type III profiles show a positive correlation with the tidal interaction strength.

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arXiv2016

Orbital classification in an N-body bar

The dynamics and evolution of any galactic structure are strongly influenced by the properties of the orbits that constitute it. In this paper, we compare two orbit classification schemes, one by Laskar (NAFF) , and the other by Carpintero and Aguilar (CA), by applying both of them to orbits obtained by following individual particles in a numerical simulation of a barred galaxy. We find that, at least for our case and some provisos, the main frequencies calculated by the two methods are in good agreement: for $80\%$ of the orbits the difference between the results of the two methods is less than $5\%$ for all three main frequencies. However, it is difficult to evaluate the amount of regular or chaotic bar orbits in a given system. The fraction of regular orbits obtained by the NAFF method strongly depends on the critical frequency drift parameter, while in the CA method the number of fundamental frequencies strongly depends on the frequency difference parameter $L_{\rm r}$ and the maximum integer used for searching the linear independence of the fundamental frequencies. We also find that, for a given particle, in general the projection of its motion along the bar minor axis is more regular than the other two projections, while the projection along the intermediate axis is the least regular.

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