Abstract
We present cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of eight Milky Way-sized
haloes that have been previously studied with dark matter only in the Aquarius
project. For the first time, we employ the moving-mesh code AREPO in zoom
simulations combined with a new comprehensive model for galaxy formation
physics designed for large cosmological simulations. Our simulations form in
most of the eight haloes strongly disc-dominated systems with realistic
rotation curves, close to exponential surface density profiles, a stellar-mass
to halo-mass ratio that matches expectations from abundance matching
techniques, and galaxy sizes and ages consistent with expectations from large
galaxy surveys in the local Universe. There is no evidence for any dark matter
core formation in our simulations, even so they include repeated baryonic
outflows by supernova-driven winds and black hole quasar feedback. The
simulations significantly improve upon the results obtained for the same
objects in some of the earlier work based on the SPH technique, and also on the
results obtained in the recent `Aquila' code comparison project which focused
on one of the haloes from our set. For this Aquila object, we carried out a
resolution study with our techniques, covering a dynamic range of 64 in mass
resolution. Without any change in our feedback parameters, the final galaxy
properties are reassuringly similar, in contrast to other modeling techniques
used in the field that are inherently resolution dependent. This success in
producing realistic disc galaxies is reached without resorting to a high
density threshold for star formation, a low star formation efficiency, or early
stellar feedback, factors deemed crucial for disc formation by other recent
numerical studies.
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