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research article

Computational issues in chemo-dynamical modelling of the formation and evolution of galaxies

Revaz, Yves  
•
Arnaudon, Alexis
•
Nichols, Matthew  
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2016
Astronomy & Astrophysics

Chemo-dynamical N-body simulations are an essential tool for understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies. As the number of observationally determined stellar abundances continues to climb, these simulations are able to provide new constraints on the early star formaton history and chemical evolution inside both the Milky Way and Local Group dwarf galaxies. Here, we aim to reproduce the low alpha-element scatter observed in metal-poor stars. We first demonstrate that as stellar particles inside simulations drop below a mass threshold, increases in the resolution produce an unacceptably large scatter as one particle is no longer a good approximation of an entire stellar population. This threshold occurs at around 10(3) M-circle dot, a mass limit easily reached in current (and future) simulations. By simulating the Sextans and Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxies we show that this increase in scatter at high resolutions arises from stochastic supernovae explosions. In order to reduce this scatter down to the observed value, we show the necessity of introducing a metal mixing scheme into particle-based simulations. The impact of the method used to inject the metals into the surrounding gas is also discussed. We finally summarise the best approach for accurately reproducing the scatter in simulations of both Local Group dwarf galaxies and in the Milky Way.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1051/0004-6361/201526438
Web of Science ID

WOS:000373207800033

Author(s)
Revaz, Yves  
•
Arnaudon, Alexis
•
Nichols, Matthew  
•
Bonvin, Vivien  
•
Jablonka, Pascale  
Date Issued

2016

Publisher

EDP Sciences

Published in
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Volume

588

Start page

A21

Subjects

galaxies: dwarf

•

methods: numerical

•

stars: abundances

•

galaxies: spiral

•

galaxies: stellar content

Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
IPEP  
Available on Infoscience
July 19, 2016
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/127316
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