Simulations of isolated dwarf galaxies formed in dark matter halos with different mass assembly histories

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations to explore how different dark matter halo assembly histories influence the formation and properties of isolated dwarf galaxies, revealing episodic star formation and gas regulation effects.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the impact of halo mass assembly histories on dwarf galaxy evolution and the role of supernova-driven outflows in regulating gas and star formation.

Findings

Stellar-to-halo mass ratio remains ~0.01 since z~1

Gas fractions are episodic and regulated by supernova outflows

Dwarfs in late-assembled halos have more extended star formation histories

Abstract

We present high-resolution N-body/hydrodynamics simulations of dwarf galaxies formed in isolated CDM halos with the same virial mass, Mv~2.5x10^10 Msun at z=0, in order to (1) study the mass assembly histories (MAHs) of the halo, stars, and gas components, and (2) explore the effects of the halo MAHs on the stellar/baryonic assembly of the simulated dwarfs and on their z~0 properties. Overall, the simulated dwarfs are roughly consistent with observations. Our main results are: a) The stellar-to-halo mass ratio is ~0.01 and remains roughly constant since z~1 (the stellar MAHs follow closely the halo MAHs), with a smaller value at higher z's for those halos that assemble their mass later. b) The evolution of the galaxy gas fraction, fg, is episodic and higher, most of the time, than the stellar fraction. When fg decreases (increases), the gas fraction in the halo typically increases (decreases), showing that the SN driven outflows play an important role in regulating the gas fractions -and hence the SFR- of the dwarfs. However, in most cases, an important fraction of the gas escapes the virial radius, Rv; at z=4 the total baryon fraction inside Rv is 1.5-2 times smaller than the universal one, while at z=0 is 2-6 times smaller, with the earlier assembled halos ejecting more gas. c) The SF histories are episodic with changes in the SFRs of factors 2-10 on average. d) Although the dwarfs formed in late assembled halos show more extended SF histories, their z~0 SFRs are still below the ones measured for local isolated dwarfs. e) The effects of baryons on Mv are such that at almost any time Mv is 10-20% smaller than the corresponding Mv obtained in pure N-body simulations. Our results suggest that rather than increasing the strength of the SN-driven outflows, processes that reduce the SF efficiency even more will help to solve the potential issues faced by the CDM-based simulations of dwarfs.