NIHAO VII: Predictions for the galactic baryon budget in dwarf to Milky Way mass haloes [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1601.00967


We use the NIHAO galaxy formation simulations to make predictions for the baryonic budget in present day galaxies ranging from dwarf to Milky Way masses. The sample is made of 88 independent high resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations. NIHAO galaxies reproduce key properties of observed galaxies, such as the stellar mass vs halo mass and cold gas vs stellar mass relations. Thus they make plausible predictions for the baryon budget. We present the mass fractions of stars, cold gas, cool gas, warm-hot gas, and hot gas inside the virial radius. Compared to the predicted baryon mass, using the dark halo mass and the universal baryon fraction, we find that for all of our haloes, the missing mass is not just outside the virial radius, it has been relocated past 2 virial radius. Haloes of dwarf mass are missing ~ 90% of their baryons. More massive haloes (Milky Way mass) retain a higher fraction of their baryons, with ~ 30% missing, consistent with observational estimates.

Read this paper on arXiv…

L. Wang, A. Dutton, G. Stinson, et. al.
Thu, 7 Jan 16
34/36

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to MNRAS