Evolution of cold streams and the emergence of the Hubble sequence

Abstract

A new physical framework for the emergence of the Hubble sequence is outlined, based on novel analyses performed to quantify the evolution of cold streams of a large sample of galaxies from a state-of-the-art ultra-high resolution, large-scale adaptive mesh-refinement hydrodynamic simulation in a fully cosmological setting. It is found that the following three key physical variables of galactic cold inflows crossing the virial sphere substantially decrease with decreasing redshift: the number of streams N90 that make up 90% of concurrent inflow mass flux, average inflow rate per stream and mean (mass flux weighted) gas density in the streams ngas. Another key variable, the stream dimensionless angular momentum parameter λ, is found to instead increase with decreasing redshift. Assimilating these trends and others naturally leads to a physically coherent scenario for the emergence of the Hubble sequence, including the following expectations: (1) the predominance of a mixture of disproportionately small irregular and complex disk galaxies at z ≥ 2 when most galaxies have multiple concurrent streams, (2) the beginning of the appearance of flocculent spirals at z ∼ 1-2 when the number of concurrent streams are about 2-3, (3) the grand-design spiral galaxies appear at z ≤ 1 when galaxies with only one major cold stream significantly emerge. These expected general trends are in good accord with observations. Early-type galaxies are those that have entered a perennial state of zero cold gas stream, with their abundance increasing with decreasing redshift. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.