Regulation of Star Formation by a Hot Circumgalactic Medium

Abstract

Galactic outflows driven by supernovae (SNe) are thought to be a powerful regulator of a galaxy’s star-forming efficiency. Mass, energy, and metal outflows ( η _M , η _E , and η _Z , here normalized by the star formation rate, the SNe energy, and metal production rates, respectively) shape galaxy properties by both ejecting gas and metals out of the galaxy and by heating the circumgalactic medium (CGM), preventing future accretion. Traditionally, models have assumed that galaxies self-regulate by ejecting a large fraction of the gas, which enters the interstellar medium (ISM), although whether such high mass loadings agree with observations is still unclear. To better understand how the relative importance of ejective (i.e., high mass loading) versus preventative (i.e., high energy loading) feedback affects the present-day properties of galaxies, we develop a simple gas-regulator model of galaxy evolution, where the stellar mass, ISM, and CGM are modeled as distinct reservoirs which exchange mass, metals, and energy at different rates within a growing halo. Focusing on the halo mass range from 10 ^10 to 10 ^12 M _⊙ , we demonstrate that, with reasonable parameter choices, we can reproduce the stellar-to-halo mass relation and the ISM-to-stellar mass relation with low-mass-loaded ( η _M ∼ 0.1–10) but high-energy-loaded ( η _E ∼ 0.1–1) winds, with self-regulation occurring primarily through heating and cooling of the CGM. We show that the model predictions are robust against changes to the mass loading of outflows but are quite sensitive to our choice of the energy loading, preferring η _E ∼ 1 for the lowest-mass halos and ∼0.1 for Milky Way–like halos.

Keywords

• Circumgalactic medium
• Galactic winds
• Galaxies
• Galaxy evolution
• Galaxy physics
• Galactic and extragalactic astronomy