Accreted stars and stellar haloes of simulated galaxies in TNG50

TL;DR

This study uses the TNG50 simulation to analyze the composition, structure, and origins of stellar haloes in galaxies of various masses, revealing how accreted and in-situ stars distribute and vary across galaxy types.

Contribution

It provides detailed insights into the distribution and properties of accreted versus in-situ stars in galaxy haloes across a wide mass range, based on high-resolution cosmological simulations.

Findings

Accreted stars dominate outer regions beyond ~10 half-light radii.

Fraction of accreted stars decreases with galaxy mass.

Outer haloes contain a significant proportion of metal-poor stars.

Abstract

We use the TNG50 cosmological hydrodynamic simulation to study the accreted stellar component and stellar haloes of isolated galaxies spanning a wide range of masses ($10^8<M_*/M_\odot<10^{11}$). We find that stars formed in the main progenitor (i.e., in-situ stars) typically dominate the inner regions as far as $\sim$10 half-light radii from the centre, implying that detecting uncontrovertible evidence for the presence of an accreted stellar halo requires probing the far outskirts of a galaxy. Stars from accreted, disrupted satellites (i.e., ex-situ stars) dominate beyond that radius (roughly $25\%$ of the virial radius, $r_{200}$), which we identify as the inner boundary of the outer stellar halo. The fraction of accreted stars decreases monotonically with decreasing galaxy mass, $M_*$, from $\sim$$20\%$ on average in $\sim$$2\times 10^{12}\, M_\odot$ haloes ($M_*\sim$$10^{11}\, M_\odot$) to $2$-$3\%$ in $\sim$$2\times 10^{10}\, M_\odot$ haloes ($M_*\sim$$10^{8}\, M_\odot$). The outer halo has a mass comparable to roughly $10\%$ of all accreted stars. Fewer than $\sim$$30\%$ of stars in the outer halo are in-situ stars, many of which originate from star-forming satellites during the late stages of disruption, especially in low-mass systems. Accreted stars are systematically more metal poor in less massive systems, which makes the outer haloes of dwarf galaxies a fertile hunting ground for extremely metal-poor stars. At given galaxy mass, the more massive stellar haloes are systematically more concentrated (smaller $R_{\rm eff}$) and have steeper density profiles (larger $n$). Our results provide a blueprint for interpreting observations of the outskirts of isolated galaxies in terms of their assembly histories.