Thick-disk evolution induced by the growth of an embedded thin disk
\'Alvaro Villalobos (1), Stelios Kazantzidis (2), Amina Helmi (1) ((1), Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, (2) CCAPP, Ohio, State University)

TL;DR
This study uses collisionless N-body simulations to show how the growth of an embedded thin disk significantly alters the structure and kinematics of thick disks, emphasizing the importance of thin-disk reformation in thick-disk evolution.
Contribution
It demonstrates how the growth of an embedded thin disk affects thick-disk properties, highlighting the dependence on the thin disk's mass and scale-length, and its role in thick-disk formation models.
Findings
Thick-disk scale-lengths and scale-heights decrease significantly.
Mean rotation and velocity dispersions of thick-disk stars increase.
Final thick-disk properties depend strongly on the thin disk's mass and radial scale-length.
Abstract
We perform collisionless N-body simulations to investigate the evolution of the structural and kinematical properties of simulated thick disks induced by the growth of an embedded thin disk. The thick disks used in the present study originate from cosmologically-common 5:1 encounters between initially-thin primary disk galaxies and infalling satellites. The growing thin disks are modeled as static gravitational potentials and we explore a variety of growing-disk parameters that are likely to influence the response of thick disks. We find that the final thick-disk properties depend strongly on the total mass and radial scale-length of the growing thin disk, and much less sensitively on its growth timescale and vertical scale-height as well as the initial sense of thick-disk rotation. Overall, the growth of an embedded thin disk can cause a substantial contraction in both the radial and…
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