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Simon D. M. White

Publications and source records attributed to Simon D. M. White.

At least 253 records · Page 14Linked to original sources
arXiv2001

Giant cluster arcs as a constraint on the scattering cross-section of dark matter

We carry out ray tracing through five high resolution simulations of a galaxy cluster to study how its ability to produce giant gravitationally lensed arcs is influenced by the collision cross-section of its dark matter. In three cases typical dark matter particles in the cluster core undergo between 1 and 100 collisions per Hubble time; two more explore the long (``collisionless'') and short (``fluid'') mean free path limits. We study the size and shape distributions of arcs and compute the cross-section for producing ``extreme'' arcs of various sizes. Even a few collisions per particle modify the core structure enough to destroy the cluster's ability to produce long, thin arcs. For larger collision frequencies the cluster must be scaled up to unrealistically large masses before it regains the ability to produce giant arcs. None of our models with self-interacting dark matter (except the ``fluid'' limit) is able to produce radial arcs; even the case with the smallest scattering cross-section must be scaled to the upper limit of observed cluster masses before it produces radial arcs. Apparently the elastic collision cross-section of dark matter in clusters must be very small, below 0.1 cm^2 g^-1, to be compatible with the observed ability of clusters to produce both radial arcs and giant arcs.

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arXiv2000

Simple dynamical models of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy

We present two simple dynamical models for Sagittarius based on N-body simulations of the progressive disruption of a satellite galaxy orbiting for 12.5 Gyr within a realistic Galactic potential. In both models the satellite initially has observable properties similar to those of current outlying dwarfs; in one case it is purely stellar while in the other it is embedded in an extended massive halo. The purely stellar progenitor is a King model with a total velocity dispersion of 18.9 km/s, a core radius of 0.44 kpc and a tidal radius of 3 kpc. The initial stellar distribution in the other case follows a King profile with the same core radius, a slightly larger total velocity dispersion and similar extent. Both these models are consistent with all published data on the current Sagittarius system, they match not only the observed properties of the main body of Sagittarius, but also those reported for unbound debris at larger distances.

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arXiv2000

Weakly Self-Interacting Dark Matter and the Structure of Dark Halos

We study the formation of dark halos in a $Λ$CDM universe under the assumption that Cold Dark Matter particles have a finite cross-section for elastic collisions. We compare evolution when CDM mean free paths are comparable to halo sizes with the collisionless and fluid limits. We show that a few collisions per particle per Hubble time at halo centre can substantially affect the central density profile. Cross-sections an order of magnitude larger produce sufficient relaxation for rich clusters to develop core radii in the range 100-200 $h^{-1}$kpc. The structural evolution of halos is a competition between collisional relaxation caused by individual particle interactions and violent relaxation resulting from the infall and merging processes by which clusters grow. Although our simulations concentrate on systems of cluster size, we can scale our results to address the halo structure expected for dwarf galaxies. We find that collision cross-sections sufficiently large to significantly modify the cores of such galaxies produce cluster cores which are too large and/or too round to be consistent with observation. Thus the simplest model for self-interacting dark matter is unable to improve fits to published dwarf galaxy rotation curves without violating other observational constraints.

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arXiv2000

The Spatial and Kinematic Distributions of Cluster Galaxies in a LCDM Universe -- Comparison with Observations

We combine dissipationless N-body simulations and semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to study the spatial and kinematic distributions of cluster galaxies in a LCDM cosmology. We investigate how the star formation rates, colours and morphologies of galaxies vary as a function of distance from the cluster centre and compare our results with the CNOC1 survey of galaxies from 15 X-ray luminous clusters in the redshift range 0.18 to 0.55. In our model, gas no longer cools onto galaxies after they fall into the cluster and their star formation rates decline on timescales of 1-2 Gyr. Galaxies in cluster cores have lower star formation rates and redder colours than galaxies in the outer regions because they were accreted earlier. Our colour and star formation gradients agree with those those derived from the data. The difference in velocity dispersions between red and blue galaxies observed in the CNOC1 clusters is also well reproduced by the model. We assume that the morphologies of cluster galaxies are determined solely by their merging histories. Morphology gradients in clusters arise naturally, with the fraction of bulge- dominated galaxies highest in cluster cores. We compare these gradients with the CNOC1 data and find excellent agreement for bulge-dominated galaxies. The simulated clusters contain too few galaxies of intermediate bulge-to-disk ratio, suggesting that additional processes may influence the morphological evolution of disk-dominated galaxies in clusters. Although the properties of the cluster galaxies in our model agree extremely well with the data, the same is not true of field galaxies. Both the star formation rates and the colours of bright field galaxies appear to evolve much more strongly from redshift 0.2 to 0.4 in the CNOC1 field sample than in our simulations.

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arXiv1999

Where are the First Stars now?

We use high-resolution simulations to show that the current standard paradigm for the growth of structure in the Universe predicts the formation of a galaxy like our own to differ substantially from the classic ELS and Searle/Zinn pictures. On scales larger than the Local Group, the earliest star formation was extremely inhomogeneous, suggesting that the high redshift intergalactic medium should have large-scale abundance variations. The very oldest stars should be found today in the central regions of rich galaxy clusters. In the Milky Way's bulge and stellar halo little correlation is expected between age and metallicity. Some of the lowest metallicity stars may be relatively young. Many of the oldest stars may have high metallicity. Spheroid stars were formed before and during halo assembly, the oldest now lying preferentially at small radii, while low metallicity stars lie preferentially at large radii. The bulk of the Milky Way's stellar spheroid came from a small number of progenitors. It should show little spatial structure in the inner 5 to 15 kpc, but consist at each point of a superposition of hundreds of `cold' streams. Such streams have been detected in the Solar neighborhood.

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arXiv1999

Debris streams in the solar neighbourhood as relicts from the formation of the Milky Way

It is now generally believed that galaxies were built up through gravitational amplification of primordial fluctuations and the subsequent merging of smaller precursor structures. The stars of the structures that assembled to form the Milky Way should now make up much or all of its bulge and halo, in which case one hopes to find "fossil" evidence for those precursor structures in the present distribution of halo stars. Confirmation that this process is continuing came with the discovery of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, which is being disrupted by the Milky Way, but direct evidence that this process provided the bulk of the Milky Way's population of old stars has so far been lacking. Here we show that about ten per cent of the metal--poor stars in the halo of the Milky Way, outside the radius of the Sun's orbit, come from a single coherent structure that was disrupted during or soon after the Galaxy's formation. This object had a highly inclined orbit about the Milky Way at a maximum distance of $\sim$ 16 kpc, and it probably resembled the Fornax and Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxies.

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arXiv1999

Building up the Stellar Halo of the Galaxy

We study numerical simulations of satellite galaxy disruption in a potential resembling that of the Milky Way. Our goal is to assess whether a merger origin for the stellar halo would leave observable fossil structure in the phase-space distribution of nearby stars. We show how mixing of disrupted satellites can be quantified using a coarse-grained entropy. Although after 10 Gyr few obvious asymmetries remain in the distribution of particles in configuration space, strong correlations are still present in velocity space. We give a simple analytic description of these effects, based on a linearised treatment in action-angle variables, which shows how the kinematic and density structure of the debris stream changes with time. By applying this description we find that a single satellite of current luminosity $10^8 L_\sun$ disrupted 10 Gyr ago from an orbit circulating in the inner halo (mean apocentre $\sim 12$ kpc) would contribute about $\sim 30$ kinematically cold streams with internal velocity dispersions below 5 km/s to the local stellar halo. If the whole stellar halo were built by disrupted satellites, it should consist locally of 300 - 500 such streams. Clear detection of all these structures would require a sample of a few thousand stars with 3-D velocities accurate to better than 5 km/s. Even with velocity errors several times worse than this, the expected clumpiness should be quite evident. We apply our formalism to a group of stars detected near the North Galactic Pole, and derive an order of magnitude estimate for the initial properties of the progenitor system.

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arXiv1999

Clustering of Galaxies in a Hierarchical Universe: III. Mock Redshift Surveys

This is the third paper in a series which combines N-body simulations and semi-analytic modelling to provide a fully spatially resolved simulation of the galaxy formation and clustering processes. Here we extract mock redshift surveys from our simulations: a Cold Dark Matter model with either Omega_0=1 (tauCDM) or Omega_0=0.3 and Lambda=0.7 (LambdaCDM). We compare the mock catalogues with the northern region (CfA2N) of the Center for Astrophysics (CfA) Redshift Surveys. We study the properties of galaxy groups and clusters identified using standard observational techniques and we study the relation of these groups to real virialised systems. Most features of CfA2N groups are reproduced quite well by both models with no obvious dependence on Omega_0. Redshift space correlations and pairwise velocities are also similar in the two cosmologies. The luminosity functions predicted by our galaxy formation models depend sensitively on the treatment of star formation and feedback. For the particular choices of Paper I they agree poorly with the CfA survey. To isolate the effect of this discrepancy on our mock redshift surveys, we modify galaxy luminosities in our simulations to reproduce the CfA luminosity function exactly. This adjustment improves agreement with the observed abundance of groups, which depends primarily on the galaxy luminosity density, but other statistics, connected more closely with the underlying mass distribution, remain unaffected. Regardless of the luminosity function adopted, modest differences with observation remain. These can be attributed to the presence of the ``Great Wall'' in the CfA2N. It is unclear whether the greater coherence of the real structure is a result of cosmic variance, given the relatively small region studied, or reflects a physical deficiency of the models.

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arXiv1998

Building up the Stellar Halo of the Milky Way

We study numerical simulations of satellite galaxy disruption in a potential resembling that of the Milky Way. Our goal is to assess whether a merger origin for the stellar halo would leave observable fossil structure in the phase-space distribution of nearby stars. We show how mixing of disrupted satellites can be quantified using a coarse-grained entropy. Although after 10 billion years few obvious asymmetries remain in the distribution of particles in configuration space, strong correlations are still present in velocity space. We briefly describe how we can understand these effects based on the conservation of fine-grained phase-space density in an action-angle formalism. We also discuss the implications of our results on the known properties of the stellar halo.

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arXiv1998

Sinking Satellites and the Heating of Galaxy Discs

We have carried out a set of self-consistent N-body simulations to study the interaction between disc galaxies and merging satellites with the aim of determining the disc kinematical changes induced by such events. We explore a region of the parameter space embracing satellites with different masses and internal structure and orbits of various eccentricities. We find that the analyt ic estimates of Tóth and Ostriker (1992) are high; overestimating the disc heating and thickening resulting from the accretion process by a factor of about 2-3. We find that the heating and thickening of the disc differ for satellites on prograde and retrograde orbits. The former tend to heat the stellar disc while the latter primarily produce a coherent tilt. Thus, disc galaxies may accrete quite massive satellites without destroying the disc, particularly, if the orbits are retrograde. We also find that a massive bulge may play a role in reducing these effects. We have quantified the importance of the responsiveness of the halo by replacing it by a rigid potentia l in several simulations. In these cases, the increase of the vertical scale length is larger by a factor of $1.5-2$, indicating that a self-consistent treatment is essential to get realistic results. A frequent by-product of the accretion process is the formation of weak stellar warps and asymmetric discs. Finally, we have checked how well Chandrasekhar's dynamical friction formula reproduces the sinking rates in several of our experiments. We find that it works well provided a suitable value is chosen for the Coulomb logarithm and the satellite mass is taken to be the mass still bound to the satellite at each moment.

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arXiv1998

The Formation and Evolution of Disk Galaxies

We review some of our recent progress in modelling the formation of disk galaxies in the framework of hierarchical structure formation. Our model is not only consistent with the local observations, but also provides a good description of disk evolution out to redshift z~1. We use this model to interpret recent observational results on Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) at z~3. Assuming that these galaxies are associated with the most massive halos and adopting an empirical law for their star formation rates, we find that many properties of the LBG population, including their correlations, sizes and kinematics can be accommodated in the model.

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arXiv1998

Clustering of Galaxies in a Hierarchical Universe: II. Evolution to High Redshift

In hierarchical cosmologies the evolution of galaxy clustering depends both on cosmological quantities such as Omega and Lambda, which determine how dark matter halos form and evolve, and on the physical processes - cooling, star formation and feedback - which drive the formation of galaxies within these merging halos. In this paper, we combine dissipationless cosmological N-body simulations and semi-analytic models of galaxy formation in order to study how these two aspects interact. We focus on the differences in clustering predicted for galaxies of differing luminosity, colour, morphology and star formation rate and on what these differences can teach us about the galaxy formation process. We show that a "dip" in the amplitude of galaxy correlations between z=0 and z=1 can be an important diagnostic. Such a dip occurs in low-density CDM models because structure forms early and dark matter halos of 10**12 solar masses, containing galaxies with luminosities around L*, are unbiased tracers of the dark matter over this redshift range; their clustering amplitude then evolves similarly to that of the dark matter. At higher redshifts bright galaxies become strongly biased and the clustering amplitude increases again. In high density models, structure forms late and bias evolves more rapidly. As a result, the clustering amplitude of L* galaxies remains constant from z=0 to 1. The strength of these effects is sensitive to sample selection. The dip is weaker for galaxies with lower star formation rates, redder colours, higher luminosities and earlier morphological types. We explain why this is the case and how it is related to the variation with redshift of the abundance and and environment of the observed galaxies. Studies of clustering evolution as a function of galaxy properties should place strong constraints on models.

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arXiv1998

Galaxy Clusters in the Hubble Volume Simulations

We report on analyses of cluster samples obtained from the Hubble Volume Simulations. These simulations, an $Ω=1$ model named $τ$CDM and a flat low $Ω$ model with a cosmological constant ($Λ$CDM), comprise the largest computational efforts to date in numerical cosmology. We investigate the presence of massive galaxy clusters at $z\approx 0.8$. The $τ$CDM model fails to form clusters at such a redshift. However, due to the small number of observed clusters around $z\approx 0.8$ and the uncertainties in the determinations of their masses, this conclusion still is somewhat preliminary. We produce cluster catalogs at $z=0$ for both cosmologies and investigate their two--point correlation function $ξ$. We show that the relationship between the mean density of subsamples of clusters, expressed via their mean separation $d_{\rm c}$, and the correlation length $r_0$, defined through $ξ(r_0) = 1$, is not linear but turns over gently for large $d_{\rm c}$. An analytic prediction by Mo & White (1996) overpredicts $r_0$. The results from the analysis of the APM cluster data by Croft et al. (1997) are nicely matched by the $Λ$CDM model.

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arXiv1998

The Structure and Clustering of Lyman Break Galaxies

The number density and clustering properties of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) are consistent with them being the central galaxies of the most massive dark halos present at z~3. This conclusion holds in all currently popular hierarchical models for structure formation, and is almost independent of the global cosmological parameters. We examine whether the sizes, luminosities, kinematics and star-formation rates of LBGs are also consistent with this identification. Simple formation models tuned to give good fits to low redshift galaxies can predict the distribution of these quantities in the LBG population. The LBGs should be small (with typical half-light radii of 0.6-2 kpc/h), should inhabit haloes of moderately high circular velocity (180-290 km/s) but have low stellar velocity dispersions (70-120 km/s) and should have substantial star formation rates (15-100 Msun/yr). The numbers here refer to the predicted median values in the LBG sample of Adelberger et al. (1998); the first assumes an Omega=1 universe and the second a flat universe with Omega=0.3. For either cosmology these predictions are consistent with the current (rather limited) observational data. Following the work of Kennicutt (1998) we assume stars to form more rapidly in gas of higher surface density. This predicts that LBG samples should preferentially contain objects with low angular momentum, and so small size, for their mass. In contrast, samples of damped Lyman alpha systems (DLSs), should be biased towards objects with large angular momentum. Bright LBGs and DLSs may therefore form distinct populations, with very different sizes and star formation rates, LBGs being smaller and more metal-rich than DLSs of similar mass and redshift.

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arXiv1998

Tidal tails in CDM cosmologies

We study the formation of tidal tails in pairs of merging disk galaxies with structural properties motivated by current theories of cold dark matter (CDM) cosmologies. In a recent study, Dubinski, Mihos & Hernquist (1996) showed that the formation of prominent tidal tails can be strongly suppressed by massive and extended dark haloes. For the large halo-to-disk mass ratio expected in CDM cosmologies their sequence of models failed to produce strong tails like those observed in many well-known pairs of interacting galaxies. In order to test whether this effect can constrain the viability of CDM cosmologies, we construct N-body models of disk galaxies with structural properties derived in analogy to the analytical work of Mo, Mao & White (1998). With a series of self-consistent collisionless simulations of galaxy-galaxy mergers we demonstrate that even the disks of very massive dark haloes have no problems developing long tidal tails, provided the halo spin parameter is large enough. We show that the halo-to-disk mass ratio is a poor indicator for the ability to produce tails. Instead, the relative size of disk and halo, or alternatively, the ratio of circular velocity to local escape speed at the half mass radius of the disk are more useful criteria. This result holds in all CDM cosmologies. The length of tidal tails is thus unlikely to provide useful constraints on such models.

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arXiv1998

Clustering of Galaxies in a Hierarchical Universe: I. Methods and Results at z=0

We introduce a new technique for following the formation and evolution of galaxies in cosmological N-body simulations. Dissipationless simulations are used to track the formation and merging of dark matter halos as a function of redshift. Simple prescriptions, taken directly from semi-analytic models of galaxy formation, are adopted for cooling, star formation, supernova feedback and the merging of galaxies within the halos. This scheme enables us to study the clustering properties of galaxies and to investigate how selection by type, colour or luminosity influences the results. In this paper, we study properties of the galaxy distribution at z=0. These include luminosity functions, colours, correlation functions, pairwise peculiar velocities, cluster M/L ratios and star formation rates. We focus on two variants of a CDM cosmology: a high- density model with Gamma=0.21 (TCDM) and a low-density model with Omega=0.3 and Lambda=0.7 (LCDM). Both are normalized to reproduce the I-band Tully-Fisher relation near a circular velocity of 220 km/s. Our results depend strongly both on this normalization and on the prescriptions for star formation and feedback. Very different assumptions are required to obtain an acceptable model in the two cases. For TCDM, efficient feedback is required to suppress the growth of galaxies low-mass field halos. Without it, there are too many galaxies and the correlation function turns over below 1 Mpc. For LCDM, feedback must be weak, otherwise too few L* galaxies are produced and the correlation function is too steep. Given the uncertainties in modelling some of the key physical processes, we conclude that it is not yet possible to draw conclusions about the values of cosmological parameters from studies of this kind. Further work on global star formation and feedback effects is required to narrow the range of possibilities

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arXiv1998

A deep ROSAT PSPC observation towards the CMB decrement close to PC1643+4631 A & B: no cluster X-ray emission

We report on a 16 ks observation with the ROSAT PSPC centred on the CMB decrement which Jones et al. (1997) report in the direction of the quasar pair PC1643+4631. We do not detect the X-ray emission which would be expected if the decrement were caused by Compton up-scattering of CMB photons by hot gas. Our upper limit on the bolometric X-ray flux within a circle of radius 1.5 arcmin is 1.9 x 10^-14 erg cm^-2 s^-1 at 99.7% significance. This is based on data in the energy range 0.5-2.0 keV and assumes bremsstrahlung with an observed temperature of 2.5 keV. We investigate the requirements for a spherical body of hot gas to produce the decrement while remaining consistent with our data. With conservative assumptions we establish a lower redshift limit of 2.8 at 95% confidence for a 10 keV isothermal object of any size. Even higher limits obtain for objects with temperatures between 0.2 and 10 keV. We conclude that the CMB decrement is unlikely to be caused by a galaxy cluster. We discuss alternatives to a single, spherical cluster, such as a double or elongated cluster, a supercluster/filament, or scattering by a moving cluster. None of these appears attractive, especially since another candidate for a decrement near a QSO pair and without an obvious associated cluster has been found. An explanation other than Comptonization by hot gas within a virialised object appears needed.

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arXiv1997

The Evolution of Galactic Disks

We use recent observations of high-redshift galaxies to study the evolution of galactic disks over the redshift range 0<z<1. The data are inconsistent with models in which disks were already assembled at z=1 and have evolved only in luminosity since that time. Assuming that disk properties change with redshift as powers of 1+z and analysing the observations assuming an Einstein-de Sitter universe, we find that for given rotation speed, disk scalelength decreases with z as ~(1+z)^{-1}, total B-band mass-to-light ratio decreases with z as ~(1+z)^{-1}, and disk luminosity (again in B) depends only weakly on z. These scalings are consistent with current data on the evolution of disk galaxy abundance as a function of size and luminosity. Both the scalings and the abundance evolution are close to the predictions of hierarchical models for galaxy formation. If different cosmogonies are compared, the observed evolution in disk-size and disk abundance favours a flat low-density universe over an Einstein-de Sitter universe.

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