Supersonic motions of galaxies in clusters

We study motions of galaxies in galaxy clusters formed in the concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmology. We use high-resolution cosmological simulations that follow the dynamics of dark matter and gas and include various physical processes critical for galaxy formation: gas cooling, heating and star formation. Analysing the motions of galaxies and the properties of intracluster gas in a sample of eight simulated clusters at z = 0, we study the velocity dispersion profiles of the dark matter, gas and galaxies. We measure the mean velocity of galaxy motions and gas sound speed as a function of radius and calculate the average Mach number of galaxy motions. The simulations show that galaxies, on average, move supersonically with the average Mach number of ≈1.4, approximately independent of the cluster-centric radius. The supersonic motions of galaxies may potentially provide an important source of heating for the intracluster gas by driving weak shocks and via dynamical friction, although these heating processes appear to be inefficient in our simulations. We also find that galaxies move slightly faster than the dark matter particles. The magnitude of the velocity bias,   b _v ≈ 1.1  , is, however, smaller than the bias estimated for subhaloes in dissipationless simulations. Interestingly, we find velocity bias in the tangential component of the velocity dispersion, but not in the radial component. Finally, we find significant random bulk motions of gas. The typical gas velocities are of order ≈20–30 per cent of the gas sound speed. These random motions provide about 10 per cent of the total pressure support in our simulated clusters. The non-thermal pressure support, if neglected, will bias measurements of the total mass in the hydrostatic analyses of the X-ray cluster observations.     

Lyman-break galaxies: high mass or low?

We reassess the hypothesis that Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) at redshifts   z ∼ 3  mark the centres of the most massive dark matter haloes at that epoch. First we reanalyse the kinematic measurements of Pettini et al. and Erb et al. of the rest-frame optical emission lines of LBGs. We compare the distribution of the ratio of the rotation velocity to the central line width, against the expected distribution for galaxies with random inclination angles, modelled as singular isothermal spheres. The model fits the data well. On this basis we argue that the central line width provides a predictor of the circular velocity at a radius of several kpc. Assembling a larger sample of LBGs with measured line widths, we compare these results against the theoretical ΛCDM rotation curves of Mo, Mao & White, under the hypothesis that LBGs mark the centres of the most massive dark matter haloes. We find that the circular velocities are overpredicted by a substantial factor, which we estimate conservatively as  1.8 ± 0.4  . This indicates that the model is probably incorrect. The model of LBGs as relatively low-mass starburst systems, of Somerville, Primack & Faber, provides a good fit to the data.     

Shapes of clusters and groups of galaxies: comparison of model predictions with observations

We study the properties of the three-dimensional and projected shapes of haloes using high-resolution numerical simulations and observational data where the latter comes from the 2PIGG [2dFGRS (2-degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey) Percolation Inferred Galaxy Groups] and Data Release 3 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-DR3GC) group catalogues. We investigate the dependence of the halo shape on characteristics such as mass and number of members. In the three-dimensional case, we find a significant correlation between the mass and the halo shape; massive systems are more prolate than small haloes. We detect a source of strong systematics in estimates of the triaxiality of a halo, which is found to be a strong function of the number of members; Lambda cold dark matter haloes usually characterized by triaxial shapes, slightly bent towards prolate forms, appear more oblate when taking only a small subset of the halo particles.
The ellipticities of observed 2PIGG and SDSS-DR3GC groups are found to be strongly dependent on the number of group members, so that poor groups appear more elongated than rich ones. However, this is again an artefact caused by poor statistics and not an intrinsic property of the galaxy groups, nor an effect from observational biases. We interpret these results with the aid of a GALFORM (Cole et al.) mock 2PIGG catalogue. When comparing the group ellipticities in mock and real catalogues, we find an excellent agreement between the trends of shapes with number of group members. When carefully taking into account the effects of low-number statistics, we find that more massive groups are consistent with more elongated shapes. Finally, our studies find no significant correlations between the shapes of observed 2PIGG or SDSS-DR3GC groups with the properties of galaxy members such as colour- or spectral-type index.     

Formation of gas discs in merging galaxies

Observations indicate that much of the interstellar gas in merging galaxies may settle into extended gaseous discs. Here, I present simulations of disc formation in mergers of gas-rich galaxies. Up to half of the total gas settles into embedded discs; the most massive instances result from encounters in which both galaxies are inclined to the orbital plane. These discs are often warped, many have rather complex kinematics, and roughly a quarter have counter-rotating or otherwise decoupled central components. Discs typically grow from the inside out; infall from tidal tails may continue disc formation over long periods of time.     

The disc mass of spiral galaxies

We derive the disc masses of 18 spiral galaxies of different luminosity and Hubble type, both by mass modelling their rotation curves and by fitting their spectral energy distribution with spectrophotometric models. The good agreement of the estimates obtained from these two different methods allows us to quantify the reliability of their performance and to derive very accurate stellar mass-to-light ratio versus colour (and stellar mass) relationships.     

Ram pressure stripping the hot gaseous haloes of galaxies in groups and clusters

We use a large suite of carefully controlled full hydrodynamic simulations to study the ram pressure stripping of the hot gaseous haloes of galaxies as they fall into massive groups and clusters. The sensitivity of the results to the orbit, total galaxy mass, and galaxy structural properties is explored. For typical structural and orbital parameters, we find that ∼30 per cent of the initial hot galactic halo gas can remain in place after 10 Gyr. We propose a physically simple analytic model that describes the stripping seen in the simulations remarkably well. The model is analogous to the original formulation of Gunn & Gott, except that it is appropriate for the case of a spherical (hot) gas distribution (as opposed to a face-on cold disc) and takes into account that stripping is not instantaneous but occurs on a characteristic time-scale. The model reproduces the results of the simulations to within ≈10 per cent at almost all times for all the orbits, mass ratios, and galaxy structural properties we have explored. The one exception involves unlikely systems where the orbit of the galaxy is highly non-radial and its mass exceeds about 10 per cent of the group or cluster into which it is falling (in which case the model underpredicts the stripping following pericentric passage). The proposed model has several interesting applications, including modelling the ram pressure stripping of both observed and cosmologically simulated galaxies and as a way to improve present semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. One immediate consequence is that the colours and morphologies of satellite galaxies in groups and clusters will differ significantly from those predicted with the standard assumption of complete stripping of the hot coronae.     

On the apparent coupling of neutral hydrogen and dark matter in spiral galaxies

We have studied a mass model for spiral galaxies in which the dark matter surface density is a scaled version of the observed H  i surface density. Applying this mass model to a sample of 24 spiral galaxies with reliable rotation curves, one obtains good fits for most galaxies. The scaling factors cluster around 7, after correction for the presence of primordial helium. For several cases, however, different, often larger, values are found. For galaxies that cannot be fitted well, the discrepancy occurs at large radii and results from a fairly rapid decline of the H  i surface density in the outermost regions. Because of such imperfections and in view of possible selection effects, it is not possible to conclude here that there is a real coupling between H  i and dark matter in spiral galaxies.