Using the EAGLE simulations to elucidate the origin of disc surface brightness profile breaks as a function of mass and environment

TL;DR

This study uses EAGLE simulations to explore how galaxy mass and environment influence the types of surface brightness profiles in disc galaxies, revealing that mergers and star formation history shape profile types.

Contribution

It demonstrates that EAGLE simulations can reproduce observed trends in profile types and elucidates the origins of these profiles based on galaxy interactions and star formation.

Findings

Type II profiles result from truncated star-forming discs.

Type III profiles are linked to mergers and extended star formation.

Cluster environments suppress Type II profiles due to star formation quenching.

Abstract

We analyse the surface brightness profiles of disc-type galaxies in the EAGLE simulations in order to investigate the effects of galaxy mass and environment on galaxy profile types. Following observational works, we classify the simulated galaxies by their disc surface brightness profiles into single exponential (Type I), truncated (Type II) and anti-truncated (Type III) profiles. In agreement with previous observation and theoretical work, we find that Type II discs result from truncated star-forming discs that drive radial gradients in the stellar populations. In contrast, Type III profiles result from galaxy mergers, extended star-forming discs or the late formation of a steeper, inner disc. We find that the EAGLE simulations qualitatively reproduce the observed trends found between profile type frequency and galaxy mass, morphology and environment, such as the fraction of Type III galaxies increasing with galaxy mass, and the the fraction of Type II galaxies increasing with Hubble type. We investigate the lower incidence of Type II galaxies in galaxy clusters, finding, in a striking similarity to observed galaxies, that almost no S0-like galaxies in clusters have Type II profiles. Similarly, the fraction of Type II profiles for disc-dominated galaxies in clusters is significantly decreased relative to field galaxies. This difference between field and cluster galaxies is driven by star formation quenching. Following the cessation of star formation upon entering a galaxy cluster, the young stellar populations of Type II galaxies simply fade, leaving behind Type I galaxies.