Data behind Pickles on FIRE: The 3D Shape Evolution of Simulated Milky Way–Mass Galaxies

Pickles on FIRE: The 3D Shape Evolution of Simulated Milky Way–Mass Galaxies This repository contains the data underlying all figures in Xia et al. (2026), submitted to MNRAS. The primary dataset (pickles_on_fire_data.csv) contains 3D shape measurements for 13 FIRE-2 zoom-in simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies, measured at 17–18 snapshots each spanning z=7 to z=0. Shape measurements are provided for five tracers: mass-weighted all stars, young stars (<500 Myr), luminosity-weighted stars (g-band), cold gas (<10^4 K), dark matter (within r_vir), and Each row includes axis ratios (B/A, C/A), shape eigenvectors, velocity dispersion eigenvalues, rotational support parameters, and stellar masses. Additional files contain mock photometric data used in the 2D shape analysis: Sersic q-values from 30 random projections of each galaxy at z=0, 2, and 4 (Fig8_SersicRandomGband.csv), and idealized shape distributions for the three canonical shape classes (Fig7_IdealizedShapesData.csv). Simulations were performed as part of the FIRE project (http://fire.northwestern.edu) using FIRE-2 physics. The 13 galaxies comprise the Latte suite and the ELVIS on FIRE pairs.