The Seven Dwarfs illuminated. The impact of radiation on dwarf galaxies and their circumgalactic medium

Bernhard Baumschlager, Sijing Shen, James W. Wadsley, Benjamin Keller, Robert Wissing, Lucio Mayer, Piero Madau, Ferah Munshi, Alyson Brooks

arXiv8/26/2025·Read paper

Abstract

We present a high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulation of a group of field dwarf galaxies which includes on-the-fly radiative transfer (RT) and is evolved to $z=0$. Emission from stars is included according to age-dependent spectra, and a redshift-dependent UV background. The inclusion of RT results in the formation of eight additional faint dwarf galaxies with stellar masses of $10^{4}$ M$_{\odot}$ to several $10^{5}$ M$_{\odot}$ and only old stellar populations, similar to the observed Ultra-Faint Dwarf galaxies. They formed before and during cosmic reionisation and were mostly quenched by $z \sim 3-4$. The simulated galaxies follow many observed scaling relations such as the stellar mass-halo mass relation, the mass-size relation, and the luminosity-velocity dispersion relation. For the more massive dwarf galaxies, radiative feedback suppresses star formation, making it less bursty and reducing explosive outflows. This consequently reduces the dark matter core sizes by a factor of 2-3, rendering the core sizes ($\sim$ 1 kpc) more consistent with observations. The distribution of HI in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) is ubiquitous with a covering fraction of unity within $R_{vir}$, in good agreement with observations. It is rather insensitive to radiative or SN feedback at $z=0$, but at $z>5$ it is much higher in the RT simulation. In contrast, the distribution of low ions like SiII is very compact and declines sharply beyond the ISM scale. CIV and OVI have a more extended distribution, but their column densities are generally below the detection limit. Radiative feedback leads to smaller column densities of the metal ions, partly due to the reduction of total metal production, and partly because hard photons from the stellar radiation escape the ISM and further ionise the CGM. The abundance of CIV is particularly sensitive to the latter effect.

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