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Four phases of angular-momentum buildup in high-z galaxies: from cosmic-web streams through an extended ring to disc and bulge

Danovich, Mark ; Dekel, Avishai ; Hahn, Oliver ; Ceverino, Daniel ; Primack, Joel

In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2015, vol. 449, no. 2, p. 2087-2111

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    Title
    • Four phases of angular-momentum buildup in high-z galaxies: from cosmic-web streams through an extended ring to disc and bulge
    Author
    • Danovich, Mark. Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
    • Dekel, Avishai. Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
    • Hahn, Oliver. Institute for Astronomy, Department of Physics, ETH Zürich, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland
    • Ceverino, Daniel. Departamento de Fisica Teorica, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid E-28049, Spain
    • Primack, Joel. Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
    Document Type
    • Postprint
    Language
    • English
    Published in
    • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2015, vol. 449, no. 2, p. 2087-2111. Oxford University Press
    Other Version
    OAI-PMH Identifier
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:299566
    Summary
    We study the angular-momentum (AM) buildup in high-z massive galaxies using high-resolution cosmological simulations. The AM originates in co-planar streams of cold gas and merging galaxies tracing cosmic-web filaments, and it undergoes four phases of evolution. (I) Outside the halo virial radius (Rv∼100 kpc), the elongated streams gain AM by tidal torques with a specific AM (sAM) ∼1.7times the dark matter (DM) spin due to the gas' higher quadrupole moment. This AM is expressed as stream impact parameters, from ∼0.3Rv to counter rotation. (II) In the outer halo, while the incoming DM mixes with the existing halo of lower sAM to a spin λdm∼0.04, the cold streams transport the AM to the inner halo such that their spin in the halo is ∼3λdm. (III) Near pericentre, the streams dissipate into an irregular rotating ring extending to ∼0.3Rv and tilted relative to the inner disc. Torques exerted partly by the disc make the ring gas lose AM, spiral in, and settle into the disc within one orbit. The ring is observable with 30 per cent probability as a damped Lyman α absorber. (IV) Within the disc, <0.1Rv, torques associated with violent disc instability drive AM out and baryons into a central bulge, while outflows remove low-spin gas, introducing certain sensitivity to feedback strength. Despite the different AM histories of gas and DM, the disc spin is comparable to the DM-halo spin. Counter rotation can strongly affect disc evolution