On the evolution of observable properties from equal-mass disk merger simulations

We use numerical simulations to investigate the evolution of both the star formation rate (SFR) and the observable properties of equal-mass disk merger remnants for 18 different orbital configurations. In our analysis, the photometric properties of the remnants have been constructed by considering dust reddening effect in order to facilitate the comparison with observational data of large surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). First, we found that the detailed evolutions of merging galaxies are different between the merging characteristics such as merging time scale, SFR history, and burst efficiency. Around $70{\pm}5$ percent of gas turns into stars until the merger-induced starburst ends regardless of merger types. Our study also suggests that merger features involve a small fraction of stars. Merger features last roughly 3 times the final coalescence time of galaxy mergers. For a shallower surface brightness limit, the features seem to survive in a shorter time, which is the reason why detecting merger features by using shallow surveys were difficult in the past.