The role of gas infall in the evolution of disc galaxies
  Spiral galaxies are thought to acquire their gas through a protracted infall
phase resulting in the inside-out growth of their associated discs. For field
spirals, this infall occurs in the lower density environments of the cosmic
web. The overall infall rate, as well as the galactocentric radius at which
this infall is incorporated into the star-forming disc, plays a pivotal role in
shaping the characteristics observed today. Indeed, characterising the
functional form of this spatio-temporal infall in-situ is exceedingly
difficult, and one is forced to constrain these forms using the present day
state of galaxies with model or simulation predictions. We present the infall
rates used as input to a grid of chemical evolution models spanning the mass
spectrum of discs observed today. We provide a systematic comparison with
alternate analytical infall schemes in the literature, including a first
comparison with cosmological simulations. Identifying the degeneracies
associated with the adopted infall rate prescriptions in galaxy models is an
important step in the development of a consistent picture of disc galaxy
formation and evolution.
