Galaxies On FIRE: Stellar Feedback And Galaxy Evolution (Speaker: Dusan Keres, UC San Diego)

Tuesday September 23, 2014 4:00 pm

Abstract:
Galaxies grow through accretion of gas and mergers in their complex cosmological environ- ment. However, this growth needs to be regulated. Without additional “feedback” processes modeled galaxies end up too massive when compared to observed galaxies. I will present new cosmological simulations in FIRE project in which we have implemented physical feedback model from massive stars in the form of radiation pressure, stellar winds, supernovae and photo-ionization on local scales within the resolved interstellar medium.
Non-linear interaction of these mechanisms regulates the structure of the inter-stellar medium and galactic star formation and drives large scale galactic outflows. With the energy and momentum input from the standard population synthesis models our simulations produce galaxies with realistic stellar masses and star formation histories. During their evolution galaxies undergo episodic star formation and blow powerful galactic winds that remove galactic gas, interact with the circum-galactic medium and change properties of dark matter halos. I will discuss recent results from FIRE simulations, advantages of our physical feed- back back model with respect to previous
sub-grid implementations and current limitations and future improvements in models of galaxy formation.”

Event Contact

Debbie Meinbresse