Size evolution of normal and compact galaxies in the EAGLE simulation

We present the evolution of galaxy sizes, from redshift 2 to 0, for actively star forming and passive galaxies in the cosmological hydrodynamical 1003 cMpc3 simulation of the EAGLE project. We find that the sizes increase with stellar mass, but that the relation weakens with increasing redshift. Separating galaxies by their star formation activity, we find that passive galaxies are typically smaller than active galaxies at a fixed stellar mass. These trends are consistent with those found in observations and the level of agreement between the predicted and observed size–mass relations is of the order of 0.1 dex for z z ∼ 2 galaxies have revealed an abundance of massive red compact galaxies, which depletes below z ∼ 1. We find that a similar population forms naturally in the simulation. Comparing these galaxies with their z = 0 descendants, we find that all compact galaxies grow in size due to the high-redshift stars migrating outwards. Approximately 60 per cent of the compact galaxies increase in size further due to renewed star formation and/or mergers.