http://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02695
The specific angular momenta ($j\equiv J/M$) of stars ($j_{\star}$), gas ($j_{\mathrm{gas}}$), baryons as a whole ($j_{\mathrm{b}}$) and dark matter haloes ($j_{\mathrm{h}}$) contain clues of vital importance about how galaxies form and evolve. Using one of the largest samples of disc galaxies (S0-BCD) with high-quality rotation curves and near-infrared surface photometry, we perform a detailed comparative analysis of $j$ that stretches across a variety of galaxy properties. Our analysis imposes tight constraints on the “retained” fractions of specific angular momentum ($j_{\star}/j_{\mathrm{h}}$, $j_{\mathrm{HI}}/j_{\mathrm{h}}$ and $j_{\mathrm{b}}/j_{\mathrm{h}}$), as well as on their systematic trends with mass fraction and galaxy morphology, thus on how well specific angular momentum is conserved in the process of disc galaxy formation and evolution. Besides, our analysis demonstrates how challenging it is to characterize barred galaxies from a gravitational instability point of view. This is true not only for the popular Efstathiou, Lake & Negroponte (1982) bar instability criterion, which fails to separate barred from non-barred galaxies in about 55% of the cases, but also for the mass-weighted Toomre (1964) parameter of atomic gas, $\langle Q_{\mathrm{HI}}\rangle$, which succeeds in separating barred from non-barred galaxies, but only in a statistical sense.
A. Romeo, O. Agertz and F. Renaud
Thu, 7 Apr 22
44/45
Comments: Submitted to MNRAS
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