Radiation-MagnetoHydrodynamics simulations of cosmic ray feedback in disc galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses advanced radiation-magnetohydrodynamics simulations to investigate cosmic ray feedback effects on star formation and galactic outflows in isolated disc galaxies, revealing their limited ability to replace supernova feedback.

Contribution

First to simulate cosmic ray effects in galaxy evolution with anisotropic diffusion and radiative losses using RAMSES-RT, comparing their impact to supernova feedback across different galaxy masses.

Findings

CRs reduce star formation in dwarf galaxies by a factor of 2

CRs increase outflow mass loading and make outflows colder

CR feedback is weaker than strong supernova feedback in regulating star formation

Abstract

Cosmic rays (CRs) are thought to play an important role in galaxy evolution. We study their effect when coupled to other important sources of feedback, namely supernovae and stellar radiation, by including CR anisotropic diffusion and radiative losses but neglecting CR streaming. Using the RAMSES-RT code, we perform the first radiation-magnetohydrodynamics simulations of isolated disc galaxies with and without CRs. We study galaxies embedded in dark matter haloes of $10^{10}$, $10^{11}$ and $10^{12}\, \rm M_{\odot}$ with a maximum resolution of $9 \,\rm pc$. We find that CRs reduce star formation rate in our two dwarf galaxies by a factor 2, with decreasing efficiency with increasing galaxy mass. They increase significantly the outflow mass loading factor in all our galaxies and make the outflows colder. We study the impact of the CR diffusion coefficient, exploring values from $\kappa = 10^{27}$ to $\rm 3\times 10^{29}\, cm^2\, s^{-1}$. With lower $\kappa$, CRs remain confined for longer on small scales and are consequently efficient in suppressing star formation, whereas a higher diffusion coefficient reduces the effect on star formation and increases the generation of cold outflows. Finally, we compare CR feedback to a calibrated 'strong' supernova feedback model known to sufficiently regulate star formation in high-redshift cosmological simulations. We find that CR feedback is not sufficiently strong to replace this strong supernova feedback. As they tend to smooth out the ISM and fill it with denser gas, CRs also lower the escape fraction of Lyman continuum photons from galaxies.