On the life and death of satellite haloes

By Giuliano Taffoni, Lucio Mayer, Monica Colpi Fabio Governato. 2003

167 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the evolution of dark matter satellites orbiting inside more massive haloes using semi-analytical tools coupled with high-resolution N-body simulations. We select initial satellite sizes, masses, orbital energies, and eccentricities as predicted by hierarchical models of structure formation. Both the satellite (of initial mass M s , 0 ) and the main halo (of mass M h ) are described by a Navarro, Frenk & White density profile with various concentrations. We explore the interplay between dynamic friction and tidal mass loss/evaporation in determining the final fate of the satellite. We provide a user-friendly expression for the dynamic friction time-scale τ d f . l i v e and for the disruption time for a live (i.e. mass-losing) satellite. This can be easily implemented into existing semi-analytical models of galaxy formation improving considerably the way they describe the evolution of satellites. Massive satellites (M s , 0 > 0.1M h ) starting from typical cosmological orbits sink rapidly (irrespective of the initial circularity) toward the centre of the main halo where they merge after a time τ d f . r i g , as if they were rigid. Satellites of intermediate mass (0.01M h < M s , 0 < 0.1 M h ) suffer severe tidal mass losses as dynamic friction reduces their pericentre distance. In this case, mass loss increases substantially their decay time with respect to a rigid satellite. The final fate depends on the concentration of the satellite, c s , relative to that of the main halo, c h . Only in the unlikely case where c s /c h ≤ 1 are satellites disrupted. In this mass range, τ d f , l i v e gives a measure of the merging time. Among the satellites whose orbits decay significantly, those that survive must have been moving preferentially on more circular orbits since the beginning as dynamical friction does not induce circularization. Lighter satellites (M s , 0 < 0.01M h ) do not suffer significant orbital decay and tidal mass loss stabilizes the orbit even further. Their orbits should map those at the time of entrance into the main halo. After more than a Hubble time satellites have masses M s ∼ 1-10 per cent M s , 0 , typically, implying M s < 0.001 M h for the remnants. In a Milky-Way-like halo, light satellites should be present even after several orbital times with their baryonic components experimenting morphological changes due to tidal stirring. They coexist with the remnants of more massive satellites depleted in their dark matter content by the tidal field, which should move preferentially on tightly bound orbits.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/32b38a0f97e48262baaa43a77eb6d2a89e8e4f11

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Citations in the corpus

Dynamical friction and galaxy merging time-scales (2007, background): “53, while Taffoni et al. (2003) provide a more complex fitting formula for both point-mass and live satellites with realistic internal structure in an NFW potential.”
Testing modified gravity at cosmological distances with LISA standard sirens (2019, methodology): “As for the delay times, our model tracks the evolution of Dark Matter halos driven by dynamical friction, from the moment when they first touch to the final halo/galaxy merger [184], including also environmental effects such as tidal disruption and evaporation [185].”
CAN MINOR MERGING ACCOUNT FOR THE SIZE GROWTH OF QUIESCENT GALAXIES? NEW RESULTS FROM THE CANDELS SURVEY (2011, background): “This simply reflects the fact that for such low mass ratios, the time for a galaxy to descend from the virial radius to the center quickly exceeds a Hubble time (Taffoni et al. 2003; Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2008).”
Dark Matter Substructure in Numerical Simulations: A Tale of Discreteness Noise, Runaway Instabilities, and Artificial Disruption (2018, methodology): “…has been applied in numerous studies (e.g., Hernquist 1993; Springel & White 1999; Klypin et al. 1999a; Mayer et al. 2001; Peñarrubia et al. 2002; Taffoni et al. 2003; Hayashi et al. 2003), is to use the local Maxwellian approximation (hereafter LMA), which is based on the ansatz that the…”
The Dependence of Halo Clustering on Halo Formation History, Concentration, and Occupation (2005, background): “…halos that accrete their subhalos first have more time for those subhalos to be destroyed or to merge with the central object due to dynamical friction (e.g., Kravtsov &Klypin 1999; Taffoni et al. 2003; Zentner & Bullock 2003; Zentner et al. 2005; van den Bosch et al. 2005; Taylor & Babul 2005).”
Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Dark Matter Halos and Their Substructure (2007, background): “On smaller scales, however, substructure appears to be more persistent and less dependent of the age of the host (cf. Taffoni et al. (2003) and §4.6).”
Disruption of Dark Matter Substructure: Fact or Fiction? (2017, methodology): “(3) is used in several studies (e.g., Klypin et al. 1999a; Hayashi et al. 2003; Taffoni et al. 2003), it ignores the centrifugal force.”
Cold gas stripping in satellite galaxies: from pairs to clusters (2016, background): “…P P E N D I X A : T H E E F F E C T O F M E R G E R S O N G A S FR AC T I O N Satellites with a mass similar to that of their group are subject to short dynamical friction time-scales and thus increased merger rates (see Chandrasekhar 1943; Weinberg 1998; Colpi et al. 1999; Taffoni et al. 2003).”
Red Galaxy Growth and the Halo Occupation Distribution (2008, background): “Semianalytic models and simulations with rapid growth of massive galaxies may be overestimating the ability of halo mergers to funnel stellar mass into central galaxies (e.g., Taylor & Babul 2001; Benson et al. 2003; Taffoni et al. 2003; Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2008).”
The Physics of Galaxy Clustering. I. A Model for Subhalo Populations (2004, methodology): “Some of the inputs for the evolution of subhalos is provided by controlled (non-cosmological) simulations (e.g., Colpi, Mayer, & Governato 1999; Velázquez & White 1999; Taylor & Babul 2001; Mayer et al. 2002; Hashimoto et al. 2003; Taffoni et al. 2003; Kazantzidis et al. 2004b).”
Characterization of subhalo structural properties and implications for dark matter annihilation signals (2016, background): “…although the relevant gravitational physics can only be treated in an approximate way (Taylor & Babul 2001; Benson et al. 2002; Ullio et al. 2002; Taffoni et al. 2003; Zentner & Bullock 2003; Peñarrubia & Benson 2005; Oguri & Lee 2004; Taylor & Babul 2005b,a,b; van den Bosch et al. 2005;…”
Generating Equilibrium Dark Matter Halos: Inadequacies of the Local Maxwellian Approximation (2003, methodology): “At each pericentric passage, the satellites experience the strongest tidal shocks, which result in an increase of the mass-loss rate (Gnedin, Hernquist, & Ostriker 1999; Taffoni et al. 2003).”
The mass function and average mass-loss rate of dark matter subhaloes (2004, background): “In reality, the parent halo mass evolves, which should have been taken into account (see e.g. Taffoni et al. 2003; Zhao 2004).”
The tidal stripping of satellites (2005, methodology): “…with a very wide scope of application, from understanding the sharp edge observed in some nearby globular clusters (King 1962), to semi-analytic modelling of galaxy formation, where interactions and mergers play a vital role in our current hierarchical formation paradigm (Taffoni et al. 2003).”
The evolution of massive black holes and their spins in their galactic hosts (2012, methodology): “We assume that this effect causes both the dark matter as well as all the baryon components to lose mass with characteristic timescale calculated as inthe Appendix B of Taffoni et al. (2003), and we assume that this massloss starts when the satellites first reaches the periastron.”
The many manifestations of downsizing: hierarchical galaxy formation models confront observations (2009, background): “…satellite galaxies merge on to central galaxies after a dynamical friction time-scale which is assigned at the time the satellite enters the virial radius of the remnant structure, following Taffoni et al. (2003) in the case of MORGANA and Boylan-Kolchin, Ma & Quataert (2008) in the case of S08.”
Simultaneous ram pressure and tidal stripping; how dwarf spheroidals lost their gas (2005, background): “In these highly concentrated haloes, the response to tidal shocks is nearly adiabatic near the centre (Taffoni et al. 2003; Kazantzidis et al. 2004), hence stripping is expected to be minimal inside Rv=vpeak .”