Angular momentum evolution for galaxies in a Lambda-CDM scenario
  Galaxy formation in the current cosmological paradigm is a very complex
process in which inflows, outflows, interactions and mergers are common events.
These processes can redistribute the angular momentum content of baryons.
Recent observational results suggest that disc formed conserving angular
momentum while elliptical galaxies, albeit losing angular momentum, determine a
correlation between the specific angular momentum of the galaxy and the stellar
mass. These observations provide stringent constraints for galaxy formation
models in a hierarchical clustering scenario. We aim to analyse the specific
angular momentum content of the disc and bulge components as a function of
virial mass, stellar mass and redshift. We also estimate the size of the
simulated galaxies and confront them with observations. We use cosmological
hydrodynamical simulations that include an effective, physically-motivated
Supernova feedback which is able to regulate the star formation in haloes of
different masses. We analyse the morphology and formation history of a sample
of galaxies in a cosmological simulation by performing a bulge-disc
decomposition of the analysed systems and their progenitors. We estimate the
angular momentum content of the stellar and gaseous discs, stellar bulges and
total baryons. In agreement with recent observational findings, our simulated
galaxies have disc and spheroid components whose specific angular momentum
contents determine correlations with the stellar and dark matter masses with
the same slope, although the spheroidal components are off-set by a fixed
fraction. Abridged.
