Kinematic imprint of clumpy disk formation on halo objects

TL;DR

This study investigates how massive clumps in early disk galaxies can gravitationally influence halo objects, leaving detectable kinematic signatures that reveal the galaxy's formative clumpy disk phase.

Contribution

The paper introduces a toy-model simulation showing that massive clumps can impart rotational and eccentricity features to halo objects within a few hundred million years.

Findings

Halo objects can acquire disk-like rotation due to clump interactions.

Vertical gradients in halo kinematics are induced by clump gravitational effects.

The impact depends on clump mass and mass-loss processes.

Abstract

Context: Clumpy disk galaxies in the distant universe, at redshift of z>1, have been observed to host several giant clumps in their disks. They are thought to correspond to early formative stages of disk galaxies. On the other hand, halo objects, such as old globular clusters and halo stars, are likely to consist of the oldest stars in a galaxy (age>10 Gyr), therefore the clumpy disk formation can be presumed to take place in a pre-existing halo system. Aims: Giant clumps are orbiting in the same direction in a premature disk and so massive that they may be expected to interact gravitationally with halo objects and exercise influence on kinematic state of the halo. Accordingly, I scrutinize the possibility that the clumps leave a kinematic imprint of the clumpy disk formation on a halo system. Methods: I perform a restricted N-body calculation with a toy-model to study the kinematic influence on a halo by orbital motions of clumps, examine dependence of the results on masses (mass-loss), number and orbital radii of the clumps. Results: I will show that halo objects can catch clump motions and acquire disky rotation in a dynamical friction time-scale of the clumps, ~0.5 Gyr. The influence of clumps is limited within a region around the disk, the halo system shows vertical gradients of net rotation velocity and orbital eccentricity. The significance of the kinematic influence strongly depends on the clump masses, the lower limit of postulated clump mass would be 5x10^8 solar masses. The result depends also on whether the clumps are subjected to rapid mass-loss or not, which is an open question under debate in recent studies. The existence of such massive clumps is not unrealistic, I therefore suggest that there could remain the imprints of past clumpy disk formation in current galactic halos.