The role of environment on the evolution of disc galaxies density profiles New insights from simulations and comparison to Euclid data

TL;DR

This study uses hydrodynamic simulations and Euclid data to show that environmental effects in galaxy clusters can rapidly erode down-bending disc profiles, supporting an evolutionary scenario influenced by environment.

Contribution

It demonstrates that cluster tidal fields can quickly transform disc galaxy profiles, providing new insights into the environmental impact on galaxy evolution.

Findings

Type II profiles are eroded within 1 Gyr in cluster environments.

Type III and Type I profiles are largely unaffected by cluster tides.

Observations across cosmic epochs support a coherent evolutionary picture.

Abstract

Galactic discs are known to have exponential radial profiles in luminosity and stellar surface density in their bright inner regions. Nonetheless, their faint outer regions often display a break, with either a down-bending or an up-bending profile. Recent Euclid Early Release Observations show that down-bending breaks are scarce in the Perseus cluster, as already suspected in Virgo. We use hydrodynamic simulations of disc galaxies interacting with a Perseus-like cluster. We show that Type II profiles (down-bending) can be rapidly eroded by the cluster tidal field on a 1 Gyr timescale, while Type III (up-bending) and Type I (no break) profiles remain largely unaffected. Type II profiles are eroded through dynamical processes, including tidal stirring of stars by the cluster potential and triggering of star formation in the outer disc. Our simulations show that observations of disc breaks across environments and cosmic epochs are consistent with a coherent evolutionary picture. At high redshift, JWST reveals early break structures in isolated environments. At low redshift, field disc galaxies retain these breaks, while dense clusters, as observed by Euclid in Perseus, show significant alterations. Our findings support a scenario in which down-bending profiles result from internal processes during early formation phases and are later modified by environmental effects in clusters. This interpretation does not require additional mechanisms such as ram-pressure stripping or star formation threshold variations to explain the observed evolution of down-bending breaks.