The Impact of Different Effective Models for Star Formation on the Properties of Simulated Milky Way-sized Galaxies

Hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of galaxy formation such as Illustris TNG or Auriga have shown considerable success in approximately matching many galaxy properties,but their treatment of the star-forming interstellar medium (ISM) has relied on heuristic sub-grid models.However,recent high-resolution simulations of the ISM that directly resolve the regulation of star formation suggest different mean relations for the dependences of pressure and star formation rate on the average gas density.In this study,we adopt such a modern,physically grounded parameterization inspired by the TIGRESS small-scale simulations.We dub this model TEQS and use it for a detailed comparative analysis of the formation and evolution of a Milky Way-sized galaxy when compared with the widely used TNG model.By employing high-resolution simulations in tall box setups,we first investigate the structural differences expected for these two models when applied to different self-gravitating gas surface densities.Our results indicate that TEQS produces considerably thinner gaseous layers and can be expected to form stellar distributions with smaller scale-height than TNG,especially at higher surface density.To test whether this induces systematic structural differences in cosmological galaxy formation simulations,we carry out zoom-in simulations of 12 galaxies taken from the set of Milky Way-sized galaxies that have been studied in the Auriga project.Comparing results for these galaxies shows that disk galaxies formed with the TEQS model have on average very similar stellar mass but are more concentrated in their central regions and exhibit smaller stellar radii compared to those formed with the TNG model.The differences in the scale-heights of the formed stellar disks are only marginal,however,suggesting that other factors for setting the thickness of the disk are more important than the applied ISM equation-of-state model.Overall,the predicted galaxy structure is quite similar for TNG and TEQS despite significant differences in the employed star formation law,demonstrating that feedback processes are more important in regulating the stellar mass than the precise star formation law itself.