The morphologies of present-day galaxies in the COLIBRE simulations

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Moreno, Victor J. Forouhar, Schaye, Joop, Schaller, Matthieu, Ludlow, Aaron, McGibbon, Robert J., Benítez-Llambay, Alejandro, Chaikin, Evgenii, Frenk, Carlos S., Huško, Filip, Ploeckinger, Sylvia, Richings, Alexander J., Trayford, James W.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Moreno, Victor J. Forouhar
Schaye, Joop
Schaller, Matthieu
Ludlow, Aaron
McGibbon, Robert J.
Benítez-Llambay, Alejandro
Chaikin, Evgenii
Frenk, Carlos S.
Huško, Filip
Ploeckinger, Sylvia
Richings, Alexander J.
Trayford, James W.
author_facet Moreno, Victor J. Forouhar
Schaye, Joop
Schaller, Matthieu
Ludlow, Aaron
McGibbon, Robert J.
Benítez-Llambay, Alejandro
Chaikin, Evgenii
Frenk, Carlos S.
Huško, Filip
Ploeckinger, Sylvia
Richings, Alexander J.
Trayford, James W.
contents The diversity of galaxy morphologies and their relations with galaxy and halo properties is fundamental to understanding galaxy formation. Cosmological simulations of representative volumes can help disentangle the origin of observed correlations, but most suffer from two main limitations that affect morphologies: an over-pressurised interstellar medium and spurious interactions between stellar and dark matter particles. We present an overview of galaxy morphologies in the COLIBRE simulations, which address these limitations and reproduce many observed galaxy scaling relations. To quantify galaxy morphology, we use four (strongly-correlated) theory-space metrics, three kinematic and one spatial. We explore how different choices and limitations affect these indicators, including luminosity- versus mass-weighting, aperture size and shot noise. Overall, we find good convergence in present-day morphologies across two orders of magnitude in mass resolution. COLIBRE predicts that kinematic morphology correlates strongly with stellar mass and colour, and that galaxies with stellar masses of $\approx(1-2)\times 10^{10}\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ tend to be the most rotationally-dominated. At fixed stellar mass, the morphology of central galaxies correlates weakly with the properties of their host halo. Morphology correlates more strongly with internal galaxy properties, with more disky galaxies being more gas-rich, having higher star formation rates and exhibiting younger and more extended stellar populations. Other properties, like the mass of the most massive black hole, the fraction of stars that are accreted and stellar metallicity, also correlate with morphology, but with correlation strengths sensitive to the stellar mass of the galaxy and whether it is a central or satellite.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_03503
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The morphologies of present-day galaxies in the COLIBRE simulations
Moreno, Victor J. Forouhar
Schaye, Joop
Schaller, Matthieu
Ludlow, Aaron
McGibbon, Robert J.
Benítez-Llambay, Alejandro
Chaikin, Evgenii
Frenk, Carlos S.
Huško, Filip
Ploeckinger, Sylvia
Richings, Alexander J.
Trayford, James W.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
The diversity of galaxy morphologies and their relations with galaxy and halo properties is fundamental to understanding galaxy formation. Cosmological simulations of representative volumes can help disentangle the origin of observed correlations, but most suffer from two main limitations that affect morphologies: an over-pressurised interstellar medium and spurious interactions between stellar and dark matter particles. We present an overview of galaxy morphologies in the COLIBRE simulations, which address these limitations and reproduce many observed galaxy scaling relations. To quantify galaxy morphology, we use four (strongly-correlated) theory-space metrics, three kinematic and one spatial. We explore how different choices and limitations affect these indicators, including luminosity- versus mass-weighting, aperture size and shot noise. Overall, we find good convergence in present-day morphologies across two orders of magnitude in mass resolution. COLIBRE predicts that kinematic morphology correlates strongly with stellar mass and colour, and that galaxies with stellar masses of $\approx(1-2)\times 10^{10}\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ tend to be the most rotationally-dominated. At fixed stellar mass, the morphology of central galaxies correlates weakly with the properties of their host halo. Morphology correlates more strongly with internal galaxy properties, with more disky galaxies being more gas-rich, having higher star formation rates and exhibiting younger and more extended stellar populations. Other properties, like the mass of the most massive black hole, the fraction of stars that are accreted and stellar metallicity, also correlate with morphology, but with correlation strengths sensitive to the stellar mass of the galaxy and whether it is a central or satellite.
title The morphologies of present-day galaxies in the COLIBRE simulations
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.03503