The fate of the Antennae galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations to explore the evolution of the Antennae galaxies, reproducing observed features, metallicity distributions, and predicting the properties of the merger remnant as an early-type galaxy.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed metallicity map of the Antennae and links the merger remnant's properties to observed early-type galaxies through simulations and radiative transfer modeling.

Findings

Simulated Antennae reproduces observed morphology and starburst.

Produced a metallicity map consistent with observations.

Remnant evolves onto the red sequence and resembles local early-type galaxies.

Abstract

We present a high-resolution smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulation of the Antennae galaxies (NGC 4038/4039) and follow the evolution $3$ Gyrs beyond the final coalescence. The simulation includes metallicity dependent cooling, star formation, and both stellar feedback and chemical enrichment. The simulated best-match Antennae reproduces well both the observed morphology and the off-nuclear starburst. We also produce for the first time a simulated two-dimensional metallicity map of the Antennae and find good agreement with the observed metallicity of off-nuclear stellar clusters, however the nuclear metallicities are overproduced by $\sim 0.5$ dex. Using the radiative transfer code SKIRT we produce multi-wavelength observations of both the Antennae and the merger remnant. The $1$ Gyr old remnant is well fitted with a S\'ersic profile of $n=7.07$, and with an $r$-band effective radius of $r_{\mathrm{e}}= 1.6$ kpc and velocity dispersion of $\sigma_{\mathrm{e}}=180$ km$/$s the remnant is located on the fundamental plane of early-type galaxies (ETGs). The initially blue Antennae remnant evolves onto the red sequence after $\sim 2.5$ Gyr of secular evolution. The remnant would be classified as a fast rotator, as the specific angular momentum evolves from $\lambda_{\mathrm{Re}}\approx0.11$ to $\lambda_{\mathrm{Re}}\approx0.14$ during its evolution. The remnant shows ordered rotation and a double peaked maximum in the mean 2D line-of-sight velocity. These kinematical features are relatively common among local ETGs and we specifically identify three local ETGs (NGC 3226, NGC 3379 and NGC 4494) in the ATLAS$^\mathrm{3D}$ sample, whose photometric and kinematic properties most resemble the Antennae remnant.