Galaxies with Shells in the Illustris Simulation: Metallicity Signatures

Abstract

Stellar shells are low surface brightness arcs of overdense stellar regions, extending to large galactocentric distances. In a companion study, we identified 39 shell galaxies in a sample of 220 massive ellipticals (${\mathrm{M}}_{200crit}>6\times 10^{12}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$) from the Illustris cosmological simulation. We used stellar history catalogs to trace the history of each individual star particle inside the shell substructures, and we found that shells in high-mass galaxies form through mergers with massive satellites (stellar mass ratios ${\mu }_{\mathrm{stars}}\gtrsim 1:10$). Using the same sample of shell galaxies, the current study extends the stellar history catalogs in order to investigate the metallicity of stellar shells around massive galaxies. Our results indicate that outer shells are often times more metal-rich than the surrounding stellar material in a galaxy's halo. For a galaxy with two different satellites forming $z=0$ shells, we find a significant difference in the metallicity of the shells produced by each progenitor. We also find that shell galaxies have higher mass-weighted logarithmic metallicities ([Z/H]) at $2$-$4{\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{eff}}$ compared to galaxies without shells. Our results indicate that observations comparing the metallicities of stars in tidal features, such as shells, to the average metallicities in the stellar halo can provide information about the assembly histories of galaxies.

arXiv comment15 pages, 5 figures. Article published in a special issue of MDPI Galaxies after the conference "On the Origin (and Evolution) of Baryonic Galaxy Halos", Galapagos Islands, 2017

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Black hole mergers from dwarf to massive galaxies with the NewHorizon and Horizon-AGN simulations
• Formation and Incidence of Shell Galaxies in the Illustris Simulation
• The origins of post-starburst galaxies at z<0.05
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• Tidal Features at 0.05<z<0.45 in the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program: Properties and Formation Channels
• Kinematic decomposition of IllustrisTNG disk galaxies: morphology and relation with morphological structures
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• Three dynamically distinct stellar populations in the halo of M49
• Cosmological insights into the assembly of the radial and compact stellar halo of the Milky Way
• Remnants of recent mergers in nearby early-type galaxies and their classification
• NGC 474 as viewed with KCWI: diagnosing a shell galaxy
• The nature of the Eastern Extent in the outer halo of M31