The Angular Momentum Problem in CDM Cosmolgies: The End of the Beginning?

We show, by adopting a plausible model for star formation and energetic feedback in cosmological simulations of galaxy formation, that we are able to alleviate the angular momentum problem which has bedeviled many previous attempts to generate realistic disc galaxies in Cold Dark Matter cosmogonies. This paper highlights the “cooling catastrophe” as manifest in numerical cosmology and describes a simple prescription for modelling the sub-resolution physics of star formation and feedback in Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic simulations. We show results for angular momentum and disc scale length for simulations with and without feedback.