The rise and fall of stellar discs across the peak of cosmic star formation history: mergers versus smooth accretion

Journal article

Building galaxy merger trees from a state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamics simulation, Horizon-AGN, we perform a statistical study of how mergers and smooth accretion drive galaxy morphologic properties above $z > 1$. More specifically, we investigate how stellar densities, effective radii and shape parameters derived from the inertia tensor depend on mergers of different mass ratios. We find strong evidence that smooth accretion tends to flatten small galaxies over cosmic time, leadi...

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Authors: Welker, C; Dubois, Y; Devriendt, J; Pichon, C; Kaviraj, S

• Keywords: galaxies: kinematics and dynamics; galaxies: evolution; methods: numerical; galaxies: formation; galaxies: interactions