English

SIRIUS: The relation between the diversity of dwarf galaxies and their formation histories

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-02-26 v1

Abstract

Low-mass dwarf galaxies (Mvir109 MM_{\rm vir} \lesssim 10^9\rm\ M_\odot) are fundamental cosmological building blocks, yet the physical processes driving their structural diversity remain poorly understood. Recent numerical simulations have suggested a diversity in the stellar-to-halo mass ratio in this halo mass range, but either the number of samples obtained from the same simulation setup or the numerical resolution was limited. We performed high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations for eight galaxies with a dark matter halo mass of 109 M\sim 10^9\rm\ M_{\odot} up to t=1.2t=1.2 Gyr at which most gas in the galaxies has been expelled. Our samples have a scatter of an order of magnitude in the halo mass at the reionization epoch. The stellar-to-halo mass ratio expected at z=0z=0 scatters nearly two orders of magnitude with 5×1055\times10^{-5} to 2×1032\times10^{-3}. We also observed variation in the compactness of their stellar distributions. Some of our simulated galaxies exhibit a stellar half-mass radius of 30\sim30 pc, which is as small as that of ultra-compact dwarfs. The formation condition for such a compact stellar distribution is understood as an analog of the condition for the formation of dense, massive star clusters. We found that when the central gas surface density exceeds a critical threshold (Σgas30 M pc2\Sigma_{\rm gas} \gtrsim 30\rm\ M_\odot \rm\ {pc}^{-2}), the star formation becomes highly efficient and results in dense stellar systems. These results suggest that UCDs can form in situ even in isolated dark matter halos.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.22206,
  title  = {SIRIUS: The relation between the diversity of dwarf galaxies and their formation histories},
  author = {Chi-Hong Lin and Michiko S Fujii and Takayuki R Saitoh and Yutaka Hirai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.22206},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Submitted to PASJ, comments are welcome. (18 pages, 14 figures)