Related papers: The imprint of galaxy mergers on satellite planes …
In the context of the hierarchical formation of galaxies, we investigated the role played by mergers in shaping the scale relations of galaxies, that is the projections of their Fundamental Plane onto the \IeRe, \IeSig, \MRa\ and \Lsig\…
Mergers are believed to play a pivotal role in galaxy evolution, and measuring the galaxy merger fraction is a longstanding goal of both observational and theoretical studies. In this work, we extend the consideration of the merger fraction…
Mergers in the local universe present a unique opportunity for studying the transformations of galaxies in detail. Presented here are recent results, based on multi-wavelength, high-resolution imaging and medium resolution spectroscopy,…
It was first observed in the 1970s that the dwarf galaxies surrounding our Milky Way, so-called satellites, appear to be arranged in a thin, vast plane. Similar discoveries have been made around additional galaxies in the local Universe…
Mergers between gas--rich disks and less--massive dwarf galaxies are studied using numerical simulation. As the orbit of a satellite decays through dynamical friction, the primary disk develops large-amplitude spirals in response to its…
We perform a comprehensive estimate of the frequency of galaxy mergers and their impact on star formation over z~0.24--0.80 (lookback time T_b~3--7 Gyr) using 3698 (M*>=1e9 Msun) galaxies with GEMS HST, COMBO-17, and Spitzer data. Our…
The kinematics of satellite galaxies moving in a dark matter halo are a direct probe of the underlying gravitational potential. Thus, the phase-space distributions of satellites represent a powerful tool to determine the galaxy-halo…
We show how the buildup of halos by merging satellites forces an inner cusp, with a density profile \rho \propto r^{-\alpha} where \alpha \to \alpha_a \gsim 1$. Our analysis is based on a new prescription for tidal stripping as a function…
We model the formation of the Galactic stellar halo via the accretion of satellite galaxies onto a time-dependent semi-cosmological galactic potential. Our goal is to characterize the substructure left by these accretion events in a close…
Galaxy mergers are crucial to understanding galaxy evolution, therefore we must determine their observational signatures to select them from large IFU galaxy samples such as MUSE and SAMI. We employ 24 high-resolution idealised…
Minor mergers of galaxies are expected to be common in a hierarchical cosmology such as $\Lambda$CDM and have the potential to significantly affect galactic structure. In this paper we dissect the case-by-case outcome from a set of…
The process of galaxy evolution over cosmic time is not yet fully understood, since there is a debate on the impact of galaxy collisions on the star formation and metallicity. The local environment of the galaxy mergers could also have a…
Galaxy mergers are a major evolutionary transformation whose effects are borne out by a plethora of observations and numerical simulations. However, most previous simulations have used idealised, isolated, binary mergers and there has not…
We build a model to predict from first principles the properties of major mergers. We predict these from the coalescence of peaks and saddle points in the vicinity of a given larger peak, as one increases the smoothing scale in the initial…
We study resolution effects in numerical simulations of gas-rich and gas-poor major mergers, and show that the formation of slowly-rotating elliptical galaxies often requires a resolution that is beyond the present-day standards to be…
Galaxy mergers are known to trigger bursts of central star formation, which should therefore lead to stellar mass growth in their inner regions. However, observational measurements of this `burst mass fraction' are scant. Here, we assemble…
Galaxy mergers are pivotal events in the evolutionary history of galaxies, with their impact believed to be particularly significant in dwarf galaxies. We report the serendipitous identification of an isolated merging dwarf system with a…
Galaxy mergers play a crucial role in shaping the morphology, the star formation, and the mass growth of galaxies across cosmic time. While mergers have been extensively investigated in the local Universe, the evolution of their frequency…
We investigate the merger histories of isolated dwarf galaxies based on a suite of 15 high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations, all with masses of $M_{\rm halo} \approx 10^{10}\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$ (and M$_\star\sim10^5-10^7\,{\rm…
We use the Zurich ENvironmental Study (ZENS) database to investigate the environmental dependence of the merger fraction $\Gamma$ and merging galaxy properties in a sample of ~1300 group galaxies with $M>10^{9.2}M_\odot$ and 0.05<z<0.0585.…