Speaker
Description
We investigate the role of mergers in shaping the structural evolution of dark matter halos. Focusing on well-resolved halos in the mass range $10^{11.0}$–$10^{12.5}M_\odot/h$, we track their main progenitor branches across cosmic time. We find a clear evolutionary trend in halo morphology: halos that are oblate or triaxial at present predominantly originate from a prolate phase, while halos that are prolate today tend to remain prolate throughout their evolution. Additionally, we examine the clustering properties of halos classified by morphology. Despite constituting a smaller fraction of the population, oblate halos exhibit stronger clustering compared to both triaxial and prolate halos. These results highlight the connection between merger-driven evolution, halo shape, assembly bias and large-scale clustering.