A minor merger origin for stellar inner discs and rings in spiral galaxies

Abstract

Recent observations show that inner discs and rings (IDs and IRs, henceforth) are not preferably found in barred galaxies, a fact that points to the relevance of formation mechanisms different to the traditional bar-origin scenario. In contrast, the role of minor mergers in the formation of these inner components (ICs), while often invoked, is still poorly understood. We have investigated the capability of minor mergers to trigger the formation of IDs and IRs in spiral galaxies through collisionless N-body simulations. We have run a battery of minor mergers in which both primary and secondary are modelled as disc-bulge-halo galaxies with realistic density ratios. A detailed analysis of the morphology, structure, and kinematics of the ICs resulting from the minor merger has been carried out. All the simulated minor mergers develop thin ICs out of satellite material, supported by rotation. A wide morphological zoo of ICs has been obtained (including IDs, IRs, pseudo-rings, nested IDs, spiral patterns, and combinations of them), but all with structural and kinematical properties similar to observations. The existence of the resulting ICs can be deduced through the features that they imprint in the isophotal profiles and kinemetric maps of the final remnant, as in many real galaxies. The realistic density ratios used in the present models make the satellites to experience more efficient orbital circularization and disruption than in previous studies. Combined with the disc resonances induced by the encounter, these processes give place to highly aligned co- and counter-rotating ICs in the remnant centre. Therefore, minor mergers are an efficient mechanism to form rotationally-supported stellar ICs in spiral galaxies, neither requiring strong dissipation nor the development of noticeable bars (abridged).

25 pages, 16 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (28)

• The SAURON project -- IX. A kinematic classification for early-type galaxies
• The SAURON project -- X. The orbital anisotropy of elliptical and lenticular galaxies: revisiting the (V/sigma,epsilon) diagram with integral-field stellar kinematics
• The effect of galaxy mass ratio on merger--driven starbursts
• The ATLAS3D project - II. Morphologies, kinemetric features and alignment between photometric and kinematic axes of early-type galaxies
• The SAURON project - VII. Integral-field absorption and emission-line kinematics of 24 spiral galaxy bulges
• The SAURON project - XII. Kinematic substructures in early-type galaxies: evidence for disks in fast rotators
• The ghost of a dwarf galaxy: fossils of the hierarchical formation of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 5907
• The role of minor mergers in the recent star formation history of early-type galaxies
• The formation of spiral arms and rings in barred galaxies
• 2-Dimensional Kinematics of Simulated Disc Merger Remnants
• A SINFONI view of Galaxy Centers: Morphology and Kinematics of five Nuclear Star Formation Rings
• The SAURON project - XI. Stellar Populations from Absorption Line Strength Maps of 24 Early-Type Spirals
• Discovery of a Giant Stellar Tidal Stream Around the Disk Galaxy NGC 4013
• The Tully-Fisher relation for S0 galaxies
• Growth of galactic bulges by mergers. II. Low-density satellites
• On the Origin of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies: The Fundamental Plane
• Star formation and stellar populations across nuclear rings in galaxies
• A slow bar in a dark matter dominated galaxy
• Line-of-sight velocity distributions of elliptical galaxies from collisionless mergers
• Spectro-photometric close pairs in GOODS-S: major and minor companions of intermediate-mass galaxies
• The EFIGI catalogue of 4458 nearby galaxies with morphology II. Statistical properties along the Hubble sequence
• Stellar kinematics in double-barred galaxies: the sigma-hollows
• Large scale nested stellar discs in NGC 7217
• Old stellar counter-rotating components in early-type galaxies from elliptical-spiral mergers
• Discovery of ultra-compact nuclear rings in three spiral galaxies
• Bulges of disk galaxies at intermediate redshifts.II. Nuclear, disk and global colours in the Groth Strip
• Bulges of disk galaxies at intermediate redshifts. I. Samples with and without bulges in the Groth Strip Survey
• Star Formation History in the Central Region of the Barred Galaxy NGC 7177

Cited by in corpus (61)

• Secular Evolution in Disk Galaxies
• The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S${}^4$G): Precise Stellar Mass Distributions from Automated Dust Correction at 3.6 microns
• The Atlas3D project - XIV. The extent and kinematics of molecular gas in early-type galaxies
• Supermassive black holes and their host spheroids II. The red and blue sequence in the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}-M_{\ast ,\mathrm{sph}}$ diagram
• ARRAKIS: Atlas of Resonance Rings As Known In the S4G
• Kinematic signatures of nuclear discs and bar-driven secular evolution in nearby galaxies of the MUSE TIMER project
• Galaxy bulges and their massive black holes: a review
• Secular- and merger-built bulges in barred galaxies
• Kinematic Signatures of Bulges Correlate with Bulge Morphologies and Sérsic Index
• Hiding in plain sight: An abundance of compact massive spheroids in the local Universe
• Morphology and environment of galaxies with disc breaks in the S4G and NIRS0S
• MUSE tells the story of NGC 4371: The dawning of secular evolution
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. Morphological properties: tidal relics, lenses, ovals, and other inner components
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. Bulge-disc structural coupling resulting from major mergers
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers: Explaining angular momentum and concentration change from spirals to S0s
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. V. Antitruncated stellar discs resulting from major mergers
• The Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc: A dynamically cool and metal-rich component formed from the Central Molecular Zone?
• Building gas rings and rejuvenating S0 galaxies through minor mergers
• Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers. Evolution in the Tully-Fisher relation since $z\sim 1$
• Spectroscopic evidence of distinct stellar populations in the counter-rotating stellar disks of NGC 3593 and NGC 4550
• The fall of the Northern Unicorn: Tangential motions in the Galactic Anti-centre with SDSS and Gaia
• Integral Field Spectroscopy and multi-wavelength imaging of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC5668: an unusual flattening in metallicity gradient
• Distinct stellar populations in the inner bars of double-barred galaxies
• JADES + JEMS: A Detailed Look at the Buildup of Central Stellar Cores and Suppression of Star Formation in Galaxies at Redshifts 3 < z < 4.5
• Evolutionary paths among different red galaxy types at 0.3 < z < 1.5 and the late buildup of massive E-S0's through major mergers
• Fate of stellar bars in minor merger of galaxies
• Evolution induced by dry minor mergers onto fast-rotator S0 galaxies
• The Molecular Gas Density in Galaxy Centers and How It Connects to Bulges
• Evolution along the sequence of S0 Hubble types induced by dry minor mergers. I - Global bulge-to-disk structural relations
• Morpho-kinematic properties of field S0 bulges in the CALIFA survey
• Influence of galaxy stellar mass and observed wavelength on disc breaks in S${}^4$G, NIRS0S, and SDSS data
• Ionizing stellar population in the disk of NGC 3310 $-$ I. The impact of a minor merger on galaxy evolution
• Evolution along the sequence of S0 Hubble types induced by dry minor mergers. II - Bulge-disk coupling in the photometric relations through merger-induced internal secular evolution
• No evidence for small disk-like bulges in a sample of late-type spirals
• On the observational diagnostics to separate classical and disk-like bulges
• The MBHBM${}^{\star }$ Project -- II. Molecular Gas Kinematics in the Lenticular Galaxy NGC 3593 Reveal a Supermassive Black Hole
• Morphological evolution and galactic sizes in the L-Galaxies SA model
• The intrinsic shape of bulges in the CALIFA survey
• High-resolution MEGARA IFU spectroscopy and structural analysis of a fast-rotating, disky bulge in NGC 7025
• Why are classical bulges more common in S0 galaxies than in spiral galaxies?
• Connecting galaxy structure and star formation: the role of environment in formation of S0 galaxies
• Age bimodality in the central region of pseudobulges in S0 galaxies
• Photometric scaling relations of antitruncated stellar discs in S0-Scd galaxies
• Red galaxies with pseudo-bulges in the SDSS: closer to disk galaxies or to classical bulges?
• Saying Hallo to M94's Stellar Halo: Investigating the Accretion History of the Largest Pseudobulge Host in the Local Universe
• The ALMaQUEST Survey XIV: do radial molecular gas flows affect the star-forming ability of barred galaxies?
• Rapid Growth of Galactic Supermassive Black Holes through Accreting Giant Molecular Clouds during Major Mergers of their Host Galaxies
• Photometry and dynamics of the minor mergers AM\,1228-260 and AM\,2058-381
• Star formation in outer rings of S0 galaxies. IV. NGC 254 -- a double-ringed S0 with gas counter-rotation
• Growth of disc-like pseudo-bulges in SDSS DR7 since z = 0.1
• Euclid: Early Release Observations -- The surface brightness and colour profiles of the far outskirts of galaxies in the Perseus cluster
• The physical properties of S0 galaxy PGC 26218: the origin of starburst and star formation
• Stellar populations of bulges at low redshift
• Devasthal Fast Optical Telescope observations of Wolf-Rayet dwarf galaxy Mrk 996
• NGC 7457: Evidence for merger-driven cylindrical rotation in disc galaxies
• Nuclear Star Clusters and Bulges
• The Stellar Kinematics of Extragalactic Bulges
• Kinematics of molecular gas in star-forming galaxies with large-scale ionised outflows
• The physical properties and the evolution of the interacting system AM1204-292
• The role of environment on the evolution of disc galaxies density profiles New insights from simulations and comparison to Euclid data
• Search for Slow Bars in Two Barred Galaxies with Nuclear Structures: NGC 6951 and NGC 7716