There is mounting evidence that galaxy interactions play an important
role in galaxy evolution. Elliptical galaxies, spiral bulges, and a
significant fraction of all the stars in the universe may be
byproducts of galaxy mergers, especially mergers at high redshift.
Hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy interactions have given evidence
of the role mergers play in galaxy evolution, but the galaxies used in
these simulation have primarily been of equal mass, with low gas
fractions typical of spiral galaxies in the local universe. In order
to better understand the roles mergers play in galaxy evolution we are
using high resolution simulations, including hydrodynamics and star
formation, to investigate the full parameter space of pre-merger
galaxy properites and interaction parameters. A main goal of our work
is modeling the star formation rates and the morphology of
interacting galaxies in various wavelengths.
Time evolution MPEGs of Gas stars with sfr > 0
zoomed,
zoomed with a reference grid,
not zoomed. Time evolution of all Gas
stars MPEG . Time
evolution of the trayectories of stars
MPEG .
J. Primack, Thomas Cox, UCSC more images |