The Evolutionary Pathways of Disk-, Bulge-, and Halo-dominated Galaxies

To break the degeneracy among galactic stellar components, we extract kinematic structures using the framework that was described in Du et al. For example, the concept of stellar halos is generalized to weakly rotating structures that are composed of loosely bound stars, which can hence be associated to both disk and elliptical type morphologies. By applying this method to central galaxies with stellar mass 10^10−11.5 M _⊙ from the TNG50 simulation, we identify three broadly-defined types of galaxies: galaxies dominated by disk, by bulge, or by stellar halo structures. We then use the simulation to infer the underlying connection between the growth of structures and physical processes over cosmic time. By tracing galaxies back in time, we recognize three fundamental regimes: an early phase of evolution (z ≳ 2), and internal and external (mainly mergers) processes that act at later times. We find that disk- and bulge-dominated galaxies are not significantly affected by mergers since z ∼ 2. The difference in their present-day structures originates from two distinct evolutionary pathways—extended versus compact—that are likely to be determined by their parent dark matter halos (i.e., nature). In contrast, slow rotator elliptical galaxies are typically halo-dominated, forming by external processes (e.g., mergers) in the later phase (i.e., nurture). This picture challenges the general idea that elliptical galaxies are the same objects as classical bulges. In observations, both bulge- and halo-dominated galaxies are likely to be classified as early-type galaxies with compact morphology and quiescent star formation. However, here we find them to have very different evolutionary histories.