The effects of cosmic rays on the formation of Milky Way-mass galaxies in a cosmological context

Understand

We investigate the impact of cosmic rays (CR) and different modes of CR transport on the properties of Milky Way-mass galaxies in cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical simulations in the context of the AURIGA project.

• We systematically study how advection, anisotropic diffusion and additional Alfv\'en-wave cooling affect the galactic disc and the circum-galactic medium (CGM).
• Global properties such as stellar mass and star formation rate vary little between simulations with and without various CR transport physics, whereas structural properties such as disc sizes, CGM densities or temperatures can be strongly affected.
• In our simulations, CRs affect the accretion of gas onto galaxies by modifying the CGM flow structure.