Photoionization and the Formation of Dwarf Galaxies

Abstract

It has been argued that a UV photoionizing background radiation field suppresses the formation of dwarf galaxies, and may even inhibit the formation of larger galaxies. In order to test this, we present gas-dynamical simulations of the formation of small objects in a CDM universe with and without a photoionizing background. The objects are selected from a collisionless simulation at a redshift of 2.4, and rerun at higher resolution including the effects of gas dynamics and using a hierarchical grid of particles. Five objects, each with a circular speed of 46 km/sec are simulated. The presence of the photoionizing background has only a small effect on the amount of gas that collapses in these objects, reducing the amount of cold collapsed gas by at most 30%. Analysis of the smaller objects found in the higher resolution simulation indicates that the photoionizing background only significantly affects the formation of objects with a virialized halo mass less than 10^9 soalr masses and circular speeds less than 23 km/sec. However, the ionization balance is greatly changed by the presence of the background radiation field. Typical lines of sight through the objects have 4 orders of magnitude less neutral hydrogen column density when the photoionizing background is included.