Kinetic energy from supernova feedback in high-resolution galaxy simulations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for injecting kinetic energy into galaxy simulations to model supernova feedback, demonstrating its impact on galaxy evolution and metallicity distribution, with resolution-dependent considerations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel grid-based kinetic energy injection method for supernova feedback in high-resolution galaxy simulations, accounting for resolution effects and improving agreement with observations.

Findings

Small kinetic energy fractions significantly suppress stellar mass growth.

Results converge at high resolution, showing consistent galaxy evolution.

The method improves agreement with observed metallicity distributions.

Abstract

We describe a new method for adding a prescribed amount of kinetic energy to simulated gas modeled on a cartesian grid by directly altering grid cells' mass and velocity in a distributed fashion. The method is explored in the context of supernova feedback in high-resolution ($\sim 10$ pc) hydrodynamic simulations of galaxy formation. Resolution-dependence is a primary consideration in our application of the method and simulations of isolated explosions (performed at different resolutions) motivate a resolution-dependent scaling for the injected fraction of kinetic energy that we apply in cosmological simulations of a $10^9$ Msun dwarf halo. We find that in high density media ($\gtrsim$ 50 cm$^{-3}$) with coarse resolution ($\gtrsim 4$ pc per cell), results are sensitive to the initial kinetic energy fraction due to early and rapid cooling. In our galaxy simulations, the deposition of small amounts of supernova energy in kinetic form (as little as 1%) has a dramatic impact on the evolution of the system, resulting in an order of magnitude suppression of stellar mass. The overall behavior of the galaxy in the two highest resolution simulations we perform appears to converge. We discuss the resulting distribution of stellar metallicities, an observable sensitive to galactic wind properties, and find that while the new method demonstrates increased agreement with observed systems, significant discrepancies remain, likely due to simplistic assumptions that neglect contributions from Type Ia supernovae and stellar winds.