School of Physics - Theses
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ItemThe accretion history of dark matter halos( 2016)The goal of this thesis is to (i) explore the physics that drives universal accretion history of dark matter halos; (ii) determine the relation between the halos accretion history and the halos internal structure; and (iii) disentangle the impact of halos accretion history on galaxy evolution. To address these topics, we first use the extended Press-Schechter (EPS) formalism to derive the halo mass accretion history (MAH) from the growth rate of initial density perturbations. We show that the halo MAH can be well described by an exponential function of redshift in the high-redshift regime. However, in the low-redshift regime the mass history growth slows down because the growth of density perturbations is halted in the dark energy dominated era due to the accelerated expansion of the Universe. As a result, in the low-redshift regime the halo MAH can be described by a power-law function of redshift. We complement this study with the analysis of MAHs of dark matter halos using a suite of cosmological simulations. We explore the relation between the density profile of dark matter halos and their MAHs, and confirm that the formation time, defined as the time when the virial mass of the main progenitor equals the mass enclosed within the scale radius, correlates strongly with concentration. We combine both analysis, analytic and numerical, to show that the halo MAH is the link between halo concentration and the initial density perturbation field. The connection found between the halo MAH and its density profile reached in these studies was vital to derive a semi-analytic, physically motivated model for dark matter halo concentration as a function of halo mass and redshift. Because the semi-analytic model is based on EPS theory, it can be applied to wide ranges in mass, redshift and cosmology. The resulting concentration-mass (c-M) relations are found to agree with the simulations, and because the model applies only to relaxed halos, they do not exhibit the upturn at high masses or high redshifts found by some recent works. We predict a change of slope in the z~0 c-M relation at a mass scale of 10^11 solar masses. We find that this is due to the change in the functional form of the halo MAH, which goes from being dominated by an exponential (for high-mass halos) to a power-law (for low-mass halos). During the latter phase, the core radius remains approximately constant, and the concentration grows due to the drop of the background density. We then connect the evolution of dark matter halos to the evolution of galaxies. We investigate the hot hydrostatic halo formation and its dependence on feedback mechanisms. We find that in the presence of energy sources like stellar feedback, the hot halo mass increases and the mass scale of hot halo formation is reduced. Active galactic nuclei (AGN) do not affect the hot halo as strongly. We develop a semi-analytic approach that makes use of both, the hot halo mass and the fraction of shock-heated gas, to calculate a `critical mass scale' for hot halo formation. We find that this mass scale, where the heating rate produced by accretion shocks equals cooling, is the point in mass above which halos develop a stable hot atmosphere. In the redshift range z=0-4, the critical mass is 10^11.7 solar masses, but it then increases for increasing redshift, in very good agreement with our numerical results. Finally, we investigate the physics that drives the gas accretion rate onto galaxies at the center of dark matter halos. We separately analyze the gas accretion rate onto the interstellar medium (ISM) and onto the galaxy. We find that the accretion rate onto the ISM remains roughly constant in halos larger than 10^11.7 solar masses, whereas the accretion rate onto the galaxy increases with increasing halo mass and flattens in the halo mass range 10^11.7-10^12.7 solar masses, and at redshifts z<2. The flattening is produced by the presence of the hot halo atmosphere that acts as a preventive feedback mechanism. We derive a physically motivated model of gas accretion onto galaxies that accurately reproduces the gas accretion rates from simulations. The model depends on the rate of gas cooling from the hot halo, on the fraction of shock-heated gas, and on the rate of cold gas accretion. We show that the rate of gas cooling from the hot halo is driven by the cooling radius, that it does not continuously decrease with increasing halo mass as generally thought. Instead, it decreases in the halo mass range 10^11.5-10^13 solar masses, and then increases with increasing halo mass, meaning that high-mass halos develop a hot halo cooling flow. We find that the upturn in the cooling radius is due to the change in the gas density profile, which is characterized by an evolving radial slope with halo mass.