Conference paper Open Access

Connecting Angular Momentum, Mass, and Morphology: Insights from the Magneticum Simulations

Remus, Rhea-Silvia; Teklu, Adelheid F.; Schulze, Felix; Dolag, Klaus

Understanding the connection between the angular momentum properties of a galaxy and its formation history and thus its morphological properties is one of the most intriguing quests in extragalactic astrophysics. State-of-the-art hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of large volumes with sufficient resolution to trace the properties of an entire population of galaxies with a large range of masses are essential to disentangle the different processes in galaxy formation that lead to the huge variety in morphological and kinematical properties observed in present-day galaxies, but such simulations only recently became available. One such set of simulations is Magneticum Pathfinder. We present insights obtained from these simulations with regard to the close connection between the angular momentum, the stellar mass, and the morphology of galaxies. Here, we demonstrate that the position of a galaxy in the $M_*$--$j_*$ plane, described by the so-called $b$-value (see \citealt{teklu2015}), is an excellent tracer for the morphology of a galaxy, visible also in the mass--size relation, the $\lambda_\mathrm{R}$--$\epsilon$ plane, and other galaxy properties. This clearly highlights the importance of observational measurements of the angular momentum of galaxies, even though they are difficult to obtain. We conclude that using the $b$-value to classify galaxies is an extremely powerful tool for both simulations and observations.

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