Chemical evolution in hierarchical scenarios

P.B Tissera

doi:10.1051/epjconf/20121901001

Abstract

We studied the chemical properties of Milky-Way mass galaxies. We found common global chemical patterns with particularities which reflect their different assembly histories in a hierarchical scenario. We carried out a comprehensively analysis of the dynamical components (central spheroid, disc, inner and outer haloes) and their chemical properties.

Highlights

The formation and evolution of galaxies is an active area of astronomy with challenging questions remaining to be answered such as how disc-like galaxies such as our Milky Way could formed and survived in the current cosmological paradigm [8].Cosmological hydrodynamical simulations have proven to be a powerful tool to tackle these questions
We found common global chemical patterns with particularities which reflect their different assembly histories in a hierarchical scenario
The modellization of SN feedback has improved the description of the baryonic physics in cosmological simulations, resulting in galaxies with better defined disc components with too large bulges compared to observations

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The formation and evolution of galaxies is an active area of astronomy with challenging questions remaining to be answered such as how disc-like galaxies such as our Milky Way could formed and survived in the current cosmological paradigm [8]. The modellization of SN feedback has improved the description of the baryonic physics in cosmological simulations, resulting in galaxies with better defined disc components with too large bulges compared to observations. Missing physics such as black hole feedback or numerical limitations such as resolution could be behind these problems [3]. Requiring galaxy formation models to be able to reproduce both the dynamics and the chemical patterns of baryons can help us to underpin physics which could be missing or misinterpreted Motivated by these ideas, we studied the chemical properties of stars in Milky-Way mass-type galaxies simulated within the -CDM cosmology, searching for particular characteristics in their assembly histories which could leave imprints in their chemical patterns. A detail description of the method together with the E- distributions for each halo can be found in [11]

CHEMICAL ABUNDANCES AND STAR FORMATION HISTORIES

CHEMICAL ABUNDANCES AND THE ASSEMBLY HISTORIES

Surviving satellites

Findings

CONCLUSIONS