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Numerical investigation of the survival of cold gas clouds in low-redshift early-type galaxies

Mark, Van der Keijl (2021) Numerical investigation of the survival of cold gas clouds in low-redshift early-type galaxies. Master's Thesis / Essay, Astronomy.

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Abstract

Cold (T ~ 10^4 K) gas residing in the multiphase circumgalactic medium of galaxies plays an important role in sustaining star formation. For a long time, it was believed that passive galaxies were devoid of any cold gas, which would account for their lack of star formation activity. Relatively recent observations have, however, shown that ionized cold gas in the form of clouds do, in fact, also inhabit the halo regions of quiescent early-type galaxies (ETGs). Where this cold gas comes from and why it does not feed star formation is not fully understood. Recently, Afruni et al. 2019 have shown, with the help of a semi-analytical model, that this cold medium might be part of the accretion from the intergalactic medium (IGM) and have suggested that the clouds evaporate in the hot (T ~ 10^{6-7} K) corona before reaching the inner regions of the galaxy. Yet, this evaporation occurs mainly via hydrodynamical instabilities that this analytical model cannot fully describe. To that end, we carry out 2D hydrodynamical simulations that include radiative cooling and thermal conduction to investigate the evolution of cold clouds travelling through a hot medium, which we then compare with the analytical model. Key parameters that we vary in our simulations are the suppression factor (f) for isotropic thermal conduction, the cloud metallicity, the cloud mass, and the radius at which the cloud starts its infall.

Item Type: Thesis (Master's Thesis / Essay)
Supervisor name: Fraternali, F. and Groennow, A.E. and Afruni, A.
Degree programme: Astronomy
Thesis type: Master's Thesis / Essay
Language: English
Date Deposited: 19 Jul 2021 13:27
Last Modified: 19 Jul 2021 13:27
URI: https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/25305

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