• DOI:10.3847/0004-637X/821/2/90
• Corpus ID: 118394813

FORMING DISK GALAXIES IN WET MAJOR MERGERS. I. THREE FIDUCIAL EXAMPLES

@article{Athanassoula2016FORMINGDG,
  title={FORMING DISK GALAXIES IN WET MAJOR MERGERS. I. THREE FIDUCIAL EXAMPLES},
  author={E. Athanassoula and S. A. Rodionov and N. Peschken and J. C. Lambert},
  journal={The Astrophysical Journal},
  year={2016},
  volume={821}
}

• E. Athanassoula, S. Rodionov, +1 author J. Lambert
• Published 9 February 2016
• Physics
• The Astrophysical Journal

Using three fiducial N-body+SPH simulations, we follow the merging of two disk galaxies that each have a hot gaseous halo component, and examine whether the merger remnant can be a spiral galaxy. The stellar progenitor disks are destroyed by violent relaxation during the merging and most of their stars form a classical bulge, while the remaining stars, as well as stars born during the merging times, form a thick disk and its bar. A new stellar disk forms subsequently and gradually in the remnant from the gas accreted mainly from the halo. It is vertically thin and well extended in its equatorial plane. A bar starts forming before the disk is fully in place, which is contrary to what is assumed in idealized simulations of isolated bar-forming galaxies, and has morphological features such as ansae and boxy/peanut bulges. Stars of different ages populate different parts of the box/peanut. A disky pseudobulge also forms, so that by the end of the simulation all three types of bulges coexist. The oldest stars are found in the classical bulge, followed by those of the thick disk, then by those in the thin disk. The youngest stars are in the spiral arms and the disky pseudobulge. The disk surface density profiles are of type II (exponential with downbending); the circular velocity curves are flat and show that the disks are submaximum in these examples: two clearly so and one near-borderline between maximum and submaximum. On average, only roughly between 10% and 20% of the stellar mass is in the classical bulge of the final models, i.e., much less than in previous simulations.