Minor mergers and their impact on the kinematics of old and young stellar populations in disk galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses N-body simulations to explore how minor mergers affect the angular momentum and kinematic differences between old and new stellar populations in disk galaxies, revealing that mergers can induce observable rotational lags.

Contribution

It demonstrates that minor mergers selectively decrease the angular momentum of old stars, creating a rotational lag between stellar populations, and explores conditions for counter-rotation and multiple merger effects.

Findings

Old stellar populations lose angular momentum during mergers.

Rotational lag between old and new stars can match Milky Way observations.

Counter-rotating stars can form depending on merger orbit.

Abstract

By means of N-body simulations we investigate the impact of minor mergers on the angular momentum and dynamical properties of the merger remnant. Our simulations cover a range of initial orbital characteristics and gas-to-stellar mass fractions (from 0 to 20%), and include star formation and supernova feedback. We confirm and extend previous results by showing that the specific angular momentum of the stellar component always decreases independently of the orbital parameters or morphology of the satellite, and that the decrease in the rotation velocity of the primary galaxy is accompanied by a change in the anisotropy of the orbits. However, the decrease affects only the old stellar population, and not the new population formed from gas during the merging process. This means that the merging process induces an increasing difference in the rotational support of the old and young stellar components, with the old one lagging with respect to the new. Even if our models are not intended specifically to reproduce the Milky Way and its accretion history, we find that, under certain conditions, the modeled rotational lag found is compatible with that observed in the Milky Way disk, thus indicating that minor mergers can be a viable way to produce it. The lag can increase with the vertical distance from the disk midplane, but only if the satellite is accreted along a direct orbit, and in all cases the main contribution to the lag comes from stars originally in the primary disk rather than from stars in the satellite galaxy. We also discuss the possibility of creating counter-rotating stars in the remnant disk, their fraction as a function of the vertical distance from the galaxy midplane, and the cumulative effect of multiple mergers on their creation.