Observationally-motivated analysis of simulated galaxies

Gibson, Brad K.; MacFarlane, Ben A.; Miranda, Maider S.

Abstract

© Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence. The spatial and temporal relationships between stellar age, kinematics, and chemistry are a fundamental tool for uncovering the physics driving galaxy formation and evolution. Observationally, these trends are derived using carefully selected samples isolated via the application of appropriate magnitude, colour, and gravity selection functions of individual stars; conversely, the analysis of chemodynamical simulations of galaxies has traditionally been restricted to the age, metallicity, and kinematics of 'composite' stellar particles comprised of open cluster-mass simple stellar populations. As we enter the Gaia era, it is crucial that this approach changes, with simulations confronting data in a manner which better mimics the methodology employed by observers. Here, we use the SYNCMD synthetic stellar populations tool to analyse the metallicity distribution function of a Milky Way-like simulated galaxy, employing an apparent magnitude plus gravity selection function similar to that employed by the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE); we compare such an observationally-motivated approach with that traditionally adopted - i.e., spatial cuts alone - in order to illustrate the point that how one analyses a simulation can be, in some cases, just as important as the underlying sub-grid physics employed.

Citation

Gibson, B. K., MacFarlane, B. A., & Miranda, M. S. (2014). Observationally-motivated analysis of simulated galaxies.

• Conference Name: Proceedings of Science
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: Mar 18, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 18, 2016
• Journal: Proceedings of science
• Print ISSN: 1824-8039
• Electronic ISSN: 1824-8039
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 07-11-July-2015
• Pages: 149-1-149-6
• Keywords: Simulated galaxies
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/433879
• Publisher URL: http://pos.sissa.it/archive/conferences/204/149/NIC%20XIII_149.pdf
• Additional Information: This is a copy of an article published in Proceedings in science, 2014, XIII Nucleus in the cosmos.