Inside‐out Galaxy Formation

Abstract

Current theories of galaxy formation have tended to focus on hierarchical structure formation, which is the most likely scenario for cosmological models with a good deal of power at small scales (e.g., standard cold dark matter). Models with little small-scale power lead to scenarios closer to spherical collapse. Recently favored power spectra (e.g., CDM]") lie somewhere in between, which suggests that both types of processes are important and may vary over time owing to gaseous reheating. From this viewpoint this paper explores a very simple inside-out scenario for galaxy formation. This scenario is a natural result of synthesizing earlier work on dark matter halos, spherical collapse, and gas redistribution via angular momentum. Although this model is highly simpliÐed and is not designed to describe the detailed formation of any individual galaxy accurately, it does (by design) predict the overall features of galaxies. In addition, old bulges and young disks are almost unavoidable results of these very simple models. This scenario may provide a useful framework for both observers and theoreticians to think about galaxy formation.