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There is mounting evidence that galaxy interactions play an important role in galaxy evolution. Elliptical galaxies, spiral bulges, and a significant fraction of all the stars in the universe may be byproducts of galaxy mergers, especially mergers at high redshift. Hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy interactions have given evidence of the role mergers play in galaxy evolution, but the galaxies used in these simulation have primarily been of equal mass, with low gas fractions typical of spiral galaxies in the local universe. In order to better understand the roles mergers play in galaxy evolution we are using high resolution simulations, including hydrodynamics and star formation, to investigate the full parameter space of pre-merger galaxy properites and interaction parameters. A main goal of our work is modeling the star formation rates and the morphology of interacting galaxies in various wavelengths. Time evolution MPEGs of Gas stars with sfr > 0 zoomed, zoomed with a reference grid, not zoomed. Time evolution of all Gas stars MPEG . Time evolution of the trayectories of stars MPEG .

J. Primack, Thomas Cox, UCSC
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