Understanding the size growth of massive galaxies through stellar populations

Ferreras, Ignacio; Trujillo, Ignacio; Mármol-Queraltó, E.; Pérez‐González, Pablo G.

doi:10.1017/s174392131501087x

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 19 publications

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“…Conversely to the study, previous works (e.g. López-Sanjuan et al 2012Ferreras et al 2013Ruiz et al 2013 have suggested that major mergers may play a more prominent role with up to ∼ 60% of a massive galaxies stellar mass growth at z < 2 arising from major merger events.…”

Section: Relative Contributions To the Stellar Masscontrasting

confidence: 84%

Minor versus major mergers: the stellar mass growth of massive galaxies from z = 3 using number density selection techniques

Ownsworth¹,

Conselice²,

Mortlock³

et al. 2014

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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We present a study on the stellar mass growth of the progenitors of local massive galaxies with a variety of number density selections with n 1 × 10 −4 Mpc −3 (corresponding to M * = 10 11.24 M ⊙ at z=0.3) in the redshift range 0.3 < z < 3.0. We select the progenitors of massive galaxies using a constant number density selection, and one which is adjusted to account for major mergers. We find that the progenitors of massive galaxies grow by a factor of four in total stellar mass over this redshift range. On average the stellar mass added via the processes of star formation, major and minor mergers account for 24 ± 8%, 17 ± 15% and 34 ± 14%, respectively, of the total galaxy stellar mass at z = 0.3. Therefore 51 ± 20% of the total stellar mass in massive galaxies at z = 0.3 is created externally to their z=3 progenitors. We explore the implication of these results on the cold gas accretion rate and size evolution of the progenitors of most massive galaxies over the same redshift range. We find an average gas accretion rate of ∼ 66 ± 32 M ⊙ yr −1 over the redshift range of 1.5 < z < 3.0. We find that the size evolution of a galaxy sample selected this way is on average lower than the findings of other investigations.

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Section: Relative Contributions To the Stellar Masscontrasting

confidence: 84%

Minor versus major mergers: the stellar mass growth of massive galaxies from z = 3 using number density selection techniques

Ownsworth¹,

Conselice²,

Mortlock³

et al. 2014

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Black hole–galaxy scaling relations in FIRE: the importance of black hole location and mergers

Çatmabacak

Feldmann

Anglés-Alcázar

et al. 2022

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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The concurrent growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies remains to be fully explored, especially at high redshift. While often understood as a consequence of self-regulation via AGN feedback, it can also be explained by alternative SMBH accretion models. Here, we expand on previous work by studying the growth of SMBHs with the help of a large suite of cosmological zoom-in simulations (MassiveFIRE) that are part of the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. The growth of SMBHs is modelled in post-processing with different black hole accretion models, placements, and merger treatments, and validated by comparing to on-the-fly calculations. Scaling relations predicted by the gravitational torque driven accretion (GTDA) model agree with observations at low redshift without the need for AGN feedback, in contrast to models in which the accretion rate depends strongly on SMBH mass. At high redshift, we find deviations from the local scaling relations in line with previous theoretical results. In particular, SMBHs are under-massive, presumably due to stellar feedback, but start to grow efficiently once their host galaxies reach M* ∼ 1010M⊙. We analyse and explain these findings in the context of a simple analytic model. Finally, we show that the predicted scaling relations depend sensitively on the SMBH location and the efficiency of SMBH merging, particularly in low-mass systems. These findings highlight the relevance of understanding the evolution of SMBH-galaxy scaling relations to predict the rate of gravitational wave signals from SMBH mergers across cosmic history.

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Understanding the size growth of massive galaxies through stellar populations

Cited by 2 publications

References 19 publications

Minor versus major mergers: the stellar mass growth of massive galaxies from z = 3 using number density selection techniques

Minor versus major mergers: the stellar mass growth of massive galaxies from z = 3 using number density selection techniques

Black hole–galaxy scaling relations in FIRE: the importance of black hole location and mergers

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