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Simulating Disk Galaxies: First Results of a Systematical Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

Franziska Köckert
Affiliation:
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany email: fkoeckert@aip.de
Matthias Steinmetz
Affiliation:
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany email: fkoeckert@aip.de
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Simulating disk galaxies within the current paradigm of galaxy formation has been a long standing problem. In comparison with observations, the simulated disks were too small and too centrally concentrated, due to a large loss of angular momentum during formation. This is known as the angular momentum catastrophe (Navarro & Benz (1991)). Recently, some progress has been made in reducing this effect by changing the cosmology, including various feedback mechanisms, improving numerical resolution and carefully selecting initial conditions with a quiet merging history after z≈2. Unfortunately, it remains unclear which of these effects, or which combination, has resulted in more realistic disk formation. In order to address this problem, we conduct a systematical study using the N-body code GADGET2 (Springel (2005)). We adopt a flat ΛCDM cosmology with Ωm=0.3, ΩΛ=0.7, Ωbar=0.04 and h=0.65. Using a softening of 0.5 kpc we find disks with a very compact unresolved gas clump in the center and a thin, extended disk (R≈10kpc) of very low mass around it.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

References

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