We address the origin of Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs), which have stellar masses typical of dwarf galaxies but effective radii of Milky Way-sized objects. Their formation mechanism, and whether they are failed L galaxies or diffuse dwarfs, are challenging issues. Using zoomin cosmological simulations from the NIHAO project, we show that UDG analogues form naturally in dwarf-sized haloes due to episodes of gas outflows associated with star formation. The simulated UDGs live in isolated haloes of masses 10 10−11 M , have stellar masses of 10 7−8.5 M , effective radii larger than 1 kpc and dark matter cores. They show a broad range of colors, an average Sérsic index of 0.83, a typical distribution of halo spin and concentration, and a non-negligible HI gas mass of 10 7−9 M , which correlates with the extent of the galaxy. Gas availability is crucial to the internal processes that form UDGs: feedback driven gas outflows, and subsequent dark matter and stellar expansion, are the key to reproduce faint, yet unusually extended, galaxies. This scenario implies that UDGs represent a dwarf population of low surface brightness galaxies and should exist in the field. The largest isolated UDGs should contain more HI gas than less extended dwarfs of similar M . 1 The Macciò et al. (2008) c-M relation was used, giving up to 30% lower concentration than the Planck one used here, allowing a fit into a larger halo.

A previously derived semi-microscopic analysis based on the Double Folding Model, for α-particle elastic scattering on A ∼100 nuclei at energies below 32 MeV, is extended to medium mass A ∼50-120 nuclei and energies from ∼13 to 50 MeV. The energy-dependent phenomenological imaginary part for this semi-microscopic optical model potential was obtained including the dispersive correction to the microscopic real potential, and used within a concurrent phenomenological analysis of the same data basis. A regional parameter set for low-energy α-particles entirely based on elastic-scattering data analysis was also obtained for nuclei within the above-mentioned mass and energy ranges. Then, an ultimate assessment of (α, γ), (α, n) and (α, p) reaction cross sections concerned target nuclei from 45 Sc to 118 Sn and incident energies below ∼12 MeV. The former diffuseness of the real part of optical potential as well as the surface imaginary-potential depth have been found responsible for the actual difficulties in the description of these data, and modified in order to obtain an optical potential which describe equally well both the low energy elastic-scattering and induced-reaction data of α-particles.

No abstract

We use ∼ 100 cosmological galaxy formation 'zoom-in' simulations using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code gasoline to study the effect of baryonic processes on the mass profiles of cold dark matter haloes. The haloes in our study range from dwarf (M 200 ∼ 10 10 M ⊙ ) to Milky Way (M 200 ∼ 10 12 M ⊙ ) masses. Our simulations exhibit a wide range of halo responses, primarily varying with mass, from expansion to contraction, with up to factor ∼ 10 changes in the enclosed dark matter mass at 1 per cent of the virial radius. Confirming previous studies, the halo response is correlated with the integrated efficiency of star formation:In addition, we report a new correlation with the compactness of the stellar system: ǫ R ≡ r 1/2 /R 200 . We provide an analytic formula depending on ǫ SF and ǫ R for the response of cold dark matter haloes to baryonic processes. An observationally testable prediction is that, at fixed mass, larger galaxies experience more halo expansion, while the smaller galaxies more halo contraction. This diversity of dark halo response is captured by a toy model consisting of cycles of adiabatic inflow (causing contraction) and impulsive gas outflow (causing expansion). For net outflow, or equal inflow and outflow fractions, f , the overall effect is expansion, with more expansion with larger f . For net inflow, contraction occurs for small f (large radii), while expansion occurs for large f (small radii), recovering the phenomenology seen in our simulations. These regularities in the galaxy formation process provide a step towards a fully predictive model for the structure of cold dark matter haloes.

No abstract