Discrete Effects in Stellar Feedback: Individual Supernovae, Hypernovae, and IMF Sampling in Dwarf Galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations to show that the discrete nature of supernovae significantly influences dwarf galaxy evolution, while IMF sampling effects are less impactful on galaxy properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates the importance of modeling individual supernovae in simulations and clarifies the limited role of IMF sampling effects on galaxy-scale outcomes.

Findings

Discrete supernovae are crucial for realistic ISM and wind structures.

IMF sampling has weak effects on galaxy properties once supernovae are discretized.

Hypernovae do not significantly quench star formation unless they dominate total energy.

Abstract

Using high-resolution simulations from the FIRE-2 (Feedback In Realistic Environments) project, we study the effects of discreteness in stellar feedback processes on the evolution of galaxies and the properties of the interstellar medium (ISM). We specifically consider the discretization of supernovae (SNe), including hypernovae (HNe), and sampling the initial mass function (IMF). We study these processes in cosmological simulations of dwarf galaxies with $z=0$ stellar masses $M_{\ast}\sim 10^{4}-3\times10^{6}\,M_\odot$ (halo masses $\sim 10^{9}-10^{10}\,M_\odot$). We show that the discrete nature of individual SNe (as opposed to a model in which their energy/momentum deposition is continuous over time, similar to stellar winds) is crucial in generating a reasonable ISM structure and galactic winds and in regulating dwarf stellar masses. However, once SNe are discretized, accounting for the effects of IMF sampling on continuous mechanisms such as radiative feedback and stellar mass-loss (as opposed to adopting IMF-averaged rates) has weak effects on galaxy-scale properties. We also consider the effects of rare HNe events with energies $\sim 10^{53}\,{\rm erg}$. The effects of HNe are similar to the effects of clustered explosions of SNe -- which are already captured in our default simulation setup -- and do not quench star formation (provided that the HNe do not dominate the total SNe energy budget), which suggests that HNe yield products should be observable in ultra-faint dwarfs today.