The varying mass distribution of molecular clouds across M83

Freeman, Pamela; Rosolowsky, Erik; Kruijssen, J. M. Diederik; Bastian, Nate; Adamo, Angela

doi:10.1093/mnras/stx499

Cited by 77 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 62 publications

(86 reference statements)

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“…the largest self-gravitating scale in a differentially rotating disc. This hypothesis is supported by the good agreement with observed maximum GMC and cluster masses across different galactic environments (Kruijssen 2014;Adamo et al 2015;Freeman et al 2017). Reina-Campos & generalized this model by showing that in environments with low gas surface density and low angular velocity (i.e.…”

Section: The Environmental Dependence Of the Maximum Cluster Masssupporting

confidence: 53%

The difference in metallicity distribution functions of halo stars and globular clusters as a function of galaxy type

Lamers

Kruijssen

Bastian

et al. 2017

A&A

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Context. Observations of globular clusters (GCs) and field stars in the halos of the giant elliptical galaxy Cen A and the spiral galaxy M31 show a large range of cluster-to-star number ratios (or 'specific frequencies'). The cluster-to-star ratio decreases with increasing metallicity by over a factor of 100-1000, at all galactocentric radii and with a slope that does not seem to depend on radius. In dwarf galaxies, the GCs are also more metal-poor than the field stars on average. These observations indicate a strong dependence of either the cluster formation efficiency and/or the cluster destruction rate on metallicity and environment. Aims. We aim to explain the observed trends by considering the various effects that influence the cluster-to-star ratio as a function of metallicity, environment and cosmological history. Methods. We discuss the following effects that may influence the observed cluster-to-star ratio: (a) the formation efficiency of GCs; (b) the destruction of embedded GCs by gas expulsion; (c) the maximum masses of GCs; (d) the destruction of GCs by tidal stripping, dynamical friction, and tidal shocks as a function of environment; (e) the hierarchical assembly of GC systems during galaxy formation and the dependence on metallicity. Results. We show that both the cluster formation efficiency and the maximum cluster mass increase with metallicity, so they cannot explain the observed trend. Destruction of GCs by tidal stripping and dynamical friction destroy clusters mostly within the inner few kpc, whereas the cluster-to-star ratio trend is observed over a much larger range of galactocentric radii. We show that cluster destruction by tidal shocks from giant molecular clouds in the high-density formation environments of GCs becomes increasingly efficient towards high galaxy masses and, hence, towards high metallicities. The predicted cluster-to-star ratio decreases by a factor 100-1000 towards high metallicities and should only weakly depend on galactocentric radius due to orbital mixing during hierarchical galaxy merging, consistent with the observations. Conclusions. The observed, strong dependence of the cluster-to-star ratio on metallicity and the independence of its slope on galactocentric radius can be explained by cluster destruction and hierarchical galaxy growth. During galaxy assembly, GC metallicities remain a good tracer of the host galaxy masses in which the GCs formed and experienced most of their destruction. As a result, we find that the metallicity-dependence of the cluster-to-star ratio does not reflect a GC formation efficiency, but a survival fraction.

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Section: The Environmental Dependence Of the Maximum Cluster Masssupporting

confidence: 53%

The difference in metallicity distribution functions of halo stars and globular clusters as a function of galaxy type

Lamers

Kruijssen

Bastian

et al. 2017

A&A

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“…The mass function of the clumps is consistent with a power law of slope ≈ −2 (Dessauges-Zavadsky & Adamo 2018), suggesting they are formed by fragmentation in turbulent, hierarchical gaseous discs (Elmegreen & Falgarone 1996) similar to molecular clouds in local galaxies (e.g. Stutzki et al 1998;Dickey et al 2001;Freeman et al 2017). Therefore, this suggests that cluster complexes may also be common in high-redshift galaxies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 63%

The evolution of the UV luminosity function of globular clusters in the E-MOSAICS simulations

Pfeffer

Bastian

Crain

et al. 2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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We present the evolution of the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) properties of the globular cluster (GC) populations and their host galaxies formed in the E-MOSAICS suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We compute the luminosities of all clusters associated with 25 simulated Milky Way-mass galaxies, discussed in previous works, in the rest-frame UV and optical bands by combining instantaneous cluster properties (age, mass, metallicity) with simple stellar population models, from redshifts z = 0 to 10. Due to the rapid fading of young stellar populations in the UV, most of the simulated galaxies do not host GCs bright enough to be individually identified in deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations, even in highly magnified systems. The median age of the most UV-luminous GCs is < 10 Myr (assuming no extinction), increasing to 100 Myr for red optical filters. We estimate that these GCs typically only contribute a few per cent of the total UV luminosity of their host galaxies at any epoch. We predict that the number density of UV-bright proto-GCs (or cluster clumps) will peak between redshifts z = 1 − 3. In the main progenitors of Milky Way-mass galaxies, 10-20 per cent of the galaxies at redshifts 1 z 3 have clusters brighter than M UV < −15, and less than 10 per cent at other epochs. The brightest cluster in the galaxy sample at z > 2 is typically M UV ∼ −16, consistent with the luminosities of observed compact, high-redshift sources.

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“…to observed trends in spiral galaxies (e.g., Rice et al 2016;Miville-Deschênes et al 2017;Freeman et al 2017). We will discuss this in more detail in a follow-up paper.…”

Section: Trends and Scaling Relations Between Gmc Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 73%

Evolution of giant molecular clouds across cosmic time

Guszejnov

Grudić

Offner

et al. 2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are well-studied in the local Universe, however, exactly how their properties vary during galaxy evolution is poorly understood due to challenging resolution requirements, both observational and computational. We present the first time-dependent analysis of giant molecular clouds in a Milky Way-like galaxy and an LMC-like dwarf galaxy of the FIRE-2 (Feedback In Realistic Environments) simulation suite, which have sufficient resolution to predict the bulk properties of GMCs in cosmological galaxy formation self-consistently. We show explicitly that the majority of star formation outside the galactic center occurs within self-gravitating gas structures that have properties consistent with observed bound GMCs. We find that the typical cloud bulk properties such as mass and surface density do not vary more than a factor of 2 in any systematic way after the first Gyr of cosmic evolution within a given galaxy from its progenitor. While the median properties are constant, the tails of the distributions can briefly undergo drastic changes, which can produce very massive and dense self-gravitating gas clouds. Once the galaxy forms, we identify only two systematic trends in bulk properties over cosmic time: a steady increase in metallicity produced by previous stellar populations and a weak decrease in bulk cloud temperatures. With the exception of metallicity we find no significant differences in cloud properties between the Milky Way-like and dwarf galaxies. These results have important implications for cosmological star and star cluster formation and put especially strong constraints on theories relating the stellar initial mass function to cloud properties.

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The varying mass distribution of molecular clouds across M83

Cited by 77 publications

References 62 publications

The difference in metallicity distribution functions of halo stars and globular clusters as a function of galaxy type

The difference in metallicity distribution functions of halo stars and globular clusters as a function of galaxy type

The evolution of the UV luminosity function of globular clusters in the E-MOSAICS simulations

Evolution of giant molecular clouds across cosmic time

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