The History of Galaxy Mergers in IllustrisTNG (2509.09355v1)

Abstract: The process of galaxy evolution over cosmic time is not yet fully understood, since there is a debate on the impact of galaxy collisions on the star formation and metallicity. The local environment of the galaxy mergers could also have a large impact on the evolution of the galaxies, but it has not yet been possible to examine it in detail. Modern simulations with larger capacity, including the newest physical knowledge and new observations with JWST, help us to answer these questions. Using the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulation, we processed the catalogue data and the merger tree files of the TNG300-1 simulation. We calculated the galaxies average star formation rate (SFR) and mass at redshifts between 0 < z < 15. We investigated the environment of galaxy mergers, with the focus on the local density, and also examined how the SFR changes in merging galaxies. We compared our findings with JWST results and highlighted differences in the star formation rate density (SFRD) history between the models and observations.