Rotation of galaxies and the role of galaxy mergers

Recent integral-field spectrograph surveys have found that similar-looking early type galaxies have wide range of rotational properties (Emsellem et al. 2007). This finding initiated a new point of view to the galaxies; rotation of galaxy as the first parameter of galaxy classification (Emsellem et al. 2011, Cappellari et al. 2011, for example). Some theoretical studies tried to address the origin of galaxy rotation. Idealized galaxy merger simulations have shown that galaxy-galaxy interactions have significant effects on the rotation of galaxies. Cosmological simulations by Naab et al. 2014 also added some more insights to the rotation of galaxies. However, previous studies either lack cosmological background or have not enough number of samples. Running a set of cosmological hydrodynamic zoom-in simulations using the AMR code RAMSES(Teyssier 2002). we have constructed a sample of thousands of galaxies in 20 clusters. Here we present a kinematic analysis of a large sample of galaxies in the cosmological context. The overall distribution of rotation parameter of simulated galaxies suggests a single peak corresponding to fast rotating galaxies. But when divided by mass, we find a strong mass dependency of galaxy rotation, and massive galaxies are distinctively slow rotating. The cumulated effective of mergers seems to neutralize galaxy rotation as suggested by previous studies (Khochfar et al. 2011, Naab et al. 2014, and Moody et al. 2014). This is consistent with the fact that massive galaxies tend to rotate more slowly after numerous mergers. However, if seen individually, merger can either increase or decrease galaxy rotation depending on mass ratio, orbital parameter, and relative rotation axis of the two galaxies. This explains the existence of some non-slow rotating massive early type galaxies.