2025/06/30 by Federico G. Iza, S. E. Nuza, Iza, Federico G. +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.24077
openalex publication_date 2025/06/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Galaxies form due to the continuous accretion of gaseous material towards the centre of dark matter haloes, which gives rise to stellar discs once the gas reaches high density. Analysis of stellar age distribution shows that stars in the inner regions of the disc are born at earlier times, in contrast to those found in the outer regions, which constitute a younger population. This scheme, typical of galactic formation processes, is known as the "inside-out" scenario and is closely related to the global properties of a significant fraction of the population of spiral galaxies. In this study, we analyse model galaxies from the Auriga project, a set of high-resolution, magnetohydrodynamic cosmological simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies, to investigate the distribution of metals at z=0. Since different galactic components were subjected to different formation histories, we focus on the distribution of metals in the halo, bulge, and disc using a dynamical decomposition method based on the degree of rotation of the stars and their gravitational potential.