Related papers: MEGA: Merger graphs of structure formation
Recent observational and theoretical studies have suggested that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) grow mostly through non-merger (`secular') processes. Since galaxy mergers lead to dynamical bulge growth, the only way to observationally…
We use the Millennium Simulation, a large, high resolution N-body simulation of the evolution of structure in a LambdaCDM cosmology, to study the properties and fate of substructures within a large sample of dark matter haloes. We find that…
The dynamics of massive black holes (BHs) in galaxy mergers is a rich field of research that has seen much progress in recent years. In this contribution we briefly review the processes describing the journey of BHs during mergers, from the…
Dark matter subhalos are the remnants of (incomplete) halo mergers. Identifying them and establishing their evolutionary links in the form of merger trees is one of the most important applications of cosmological simulations. The…
Hierarchical structure formation theory is based on the notion that mergers drive galaxy evolution, so a considerable framework of semi-analytic models and N-body simulations has been constructed to calculate how mergers transform a growing…
We simulate mergers between galaxies containing collisionally-relaxed nuclei around massive black holes (MBHs). Our galaxies contain four mass groups, representative of old stellar populations; a primary goal is to understand the…
We present an algorithm to extend subhalo merger trees in a low-resolution dark-matter-only simulation by conditionally matching them to those in a high-resolution simulation. The algorithm is general and can be applied to simulation data…
Galaxy haloes contain fundamental clues about the galaxy formation and evolution process: hierarchical cosmological models predict haloes to be ubiquitous, and to be (at least in part) the product of past merger and/or accretion events. The…
We study the statistics and cosmic evolution of massive black hole seeds formed during major mergers of gas-rich late-type galaxies. Generalizing the results of the hydro-simulations from Mayer et al. 2010, we envision a scenario in which a…
(Abridged) We develop a model for the cosmological role of mergers in the evolution of starbursts, quasars, and spheroidal galaxies. Combining halo mass functions (MFs) with empirical halo occupation models, we calculate where major…
We investigate several approaches for constructing Monte Carlo realizations of the merging history of virialized dark matter halos (``merger trees'') using the extended Press-Schechter formalism. We describe several unsuccessful methods in…
Recent observations support the idea that nuclear black holes grew by gas accretion while shining as luminous quasars at high redshift, and they establish a relation of the black hole mass with the host galaxy's spheroidal stellar system.…
Numerous observations have shown that almost all galaxies in our Universe host supermassive black holes (SMBHs), but there is still much debate about their formation and evolutionary processes. Recently, gravitational waves (GWs) have been…
The first stars forming in minihaloes at redshifts greater than 20 may have been very massive and could have left behind massive black hole (MBH) remnants. In a previous paper we investigated the hierarchical merging of these MBHs and their…
We track the growth and evolution of high redshift seed black holes over cosmic time. This population of massive, initial black hole seeds form at these early epochs from the direct collapse of pre-galactic gas discs. Populating dark matter…
The first stars forming in minihaloes at redshifts greater than 20 may have been very massive and could have left behind massive black hole (MBH) remnants. In previous papers we investigated the hierarchical merging of these `seed' MBHs and…
The hierarchical theory of galaxy formation rests on the idea that smaller galactic structures merge to form the galaxies that we see today. The past decade has provided remarkable observational support for this scenario, driven in part by…
The hierarchical structure formation model predicts that stellar halos should form, at least partly, via mergers. If this was a predominant formation channel for the Milky Way's halo, imprints of this merger history in the form of moving…
Galaxy mergers trigger both star formation and accretion onto the central supermassive black hole. As a result of subsequent energetic feedback processes, it has long been proposed that star formation may be promptly extinguished in galaxy…
Bulges and disks are major structural components that define galaxy morphology. The mass ratios of bulges and disks increase statistically with the galaxy mass, with the high-mass end occupied by elliptical galaxies. Although previous…