Leader: Pratyush Kumar Das

Email: p.das@uq.edu.au

Collaborators: Sarah Sweet, Simon Deeley, and others are welcome

Topic: The unexpected dynamics of low-mass dwarf galaxies

Status: under review by Science Committee

Abstract:

This project aims to explore how angular momentum, a fundamental physical property, influences the morphological evolution of galaxies. These changes are influenced by both external forces, such as gas flow, mergers, tidal interactions, and ram pressure stripping, as well as internal forces, including feedback from stars and active galactic nuclei, viscosity, and biased collapse. A key part of our work involves the development of a computational model that accurately measures the stellar specific angular momentum of galaxies. Subsequently, we aim to analyze the correlation between the derived angular momentum values and stellar mass. Specific angular momentum is computed by normalizing angular momentum by stellar mass, making it independent of stellar mass and allowing for a comparison between two theoretically uncorrelated parameters. We further plan to investigate this relation alongside the galaxy’s morphological information. To extend this correlation to a third dimension, we will add the bulge-to-total light ratio, a key morphology indicator, derived from state-of-the-art photometric fits. Our primary advantage over previous benchmarks comes from access to larger and more spatially resolved galaxy datasets from Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) surveys, including the Sydney-Australian-Astronomical-Observatory Multi-object Integral field (SAMI), Hector, and Middle Ages Galaxy Properties with Integral Field Spectroscopy (MAGPI). The second major improvement comes from the computational technique of specific angular momentum, where we compute it by careful spatial integration in the two-dimensional map, unlike previous works based on a one-dimensional approximate function or less accurate spatial integration. In addition to computing the total angular momentum, we will generate a two-dimensional map of the angular momentum distribution, which will help us better understand spatial changes influenced by internal and external factors.

Needed data products: stellar velocities maps, velocity dispersions maps, stellar mass maps, and visual morphological classifications.

Publication Date: 31/10/2024