The effects of photoionization on galaxy formation - II. Satellite galaxies in the Local Group

By A. Benson, Carlos S. Frenk, C. Lacey, C. Baugh, S. Caltech, U. Durham, Sissa. 2001

312 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use a self-consistent model of galaxy formation and the evolution of the intergalactic medium to study the effects of the reionization of the Universe at high redshift on the properties of satellite galaxies like those seen around the Milky Way. Photoionization suppresses the formation of small galaxies, so that surviving satellites are preferentially those that formed before the Universe reionized. As a result, the number of satellites expected today is about an order of magnitude smaller than the number inferred by identifying satellites with subhaloes of the same circular velocity in high-resolution simulations of the dark matter. The resulting satellite population has an abundance similar to that observed in the Local Group, although the distribution of circular velocities differs somewhat from the available data. We explore many other properties of satellite galaxies, including their gas content, metallicity and star formation rate, and find generally good agreement with available data. Our model predicts the existence of many as yet undetected satellites in the Local Group. We quantify their observability in terms of their apparent magnitude and surface brightness, and also in terms of their constituent stars. A near-complete census of the Milky Way's satellites would require imaging to V≈20 and to a surface brightness fainter than 26 V-band magnitudes per square arcsecond. Satellites with integrated luminosity V=15 should contain of order 100 stars brighter than B=26, with central stellar densities of a few tens per square arcminute. Discovery of a large population of faint satellites would provide a strong test of current models of galaxy formation.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3daa630d2a99ceaac9dd4887a80f63521277c0a6

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Citations in the corpus

Unusually Large Fluctuations in the Statistics of Galaxy Formation at High Redshift (2003, background): “For instance, photoionization heating suppresses the formation of dwarf galaxies after reionization, suggesting that the smallest galaxies seen today may have formed prior to reionization (Bullock et al. 2001; Somerville 2002; Benson et al. 2002).”
The haloes of bright satellite galaxies in a warm dark matter universe (2011, background): “…and supernova heating - was suggested by Kauffmann, White, & Guiderdoni (1993) and explored thoroughly in the early 2000s (Bullock et al. 2000; Benson et al. 2002; Somerville 2002) and has been revisited many times since then (see Font et al. 2011, and references therein for the most recent…”
Cuspy No More: How Outflows Affect the Central Dark Matter and Baryon Distribution in Lambda CDM Galaxies (2012, background): “…predicted in WDM models (Avila-Reese et al. 2001; Bode et al. 2001; Boylan-Kolchin et al. 2011b; Parry et al. 2011; Schneider et al. 2011) or to the suppression of SF in halos with virial temperature less than the cosmic UV background (Quinn et al. 1996; Benson et al. 2002; Stringer et al. 2010).”
Substructures in cold dark matter haloes (2003, background): “…background that suppresses star formation in small halos at early times (Efstathiou 1992; Bullock, Kravtsov & Weinberg 2000; Somerville 2002; Benson et al. 2002), or in destruction of these substructures by SN explosions (White & Rees 1978; Dekel & Silk 1986; Quinn, Katz & Efstathiou 1996).”
The chosen few: the low-mass haloes that host faint galaxies (2014, background): “It has, of course, long been recognised that astrophysical processes such as reionization can suppress star formation in low mass halos (e.g. Efstathiou 1992; Bullock et al. 2000; Benson et al. 2002; Somerville 2002).”
Bent by baryons: the low-mass galaxy-halo relation (2014, background): “It can be an important factor in establishing the number of observable dwarf galaxies in the local universe (e.g. Kauffmann et al. 1993; Bullock et al. 2000; Benson et al. 2002; Somerville 2002; Koposov et al. 2009; Okamoto & Frenk 2009).”
Simultaneous ram pressure and tidal stripping; how dwarf spheroidals lost their gas (2005, background): “…galaxies could be the result of cosmic reionization and stellar feedback quenching gas accretion and star formation in low-mass haloes (Dekel & Silk 1986; Thoul & Weinberg 1996; Bullock, Kravtsov & Weinberg 2000; Ferrara & Tolstoy 2000; Benson et al. 2002a,b; Somerville 2002; Susa & Umemura 2004).”
The detectability of baryonic acoustic oscillations in future galaxy surveys. (2007, methodology): “We use the GALFORM code introduced by Cole et al. (2000) and developed in a series of papers (Benson et al. 2002, 2003; Baugh et al. 2005; Bower et al. 2006).”
A primer on hierarchical galaxy formation: the semi-analytical approach (2006, methodology): “The faint end of the luminosity function can be matched with a combination of supernova feedback and the suppression of gas cooling in low mass haloes as a result of the presence of a background of photo-ionising radiation (e.g. Benson et al. 2002a).”
The history of star formation in a lcdm universe (2002, background): “…studies of photoionisation “squelching” of star formation in dwarf galaxies (Bullock et al., 2000, 2001; Barkana & Loeb, 2000; Somerville, 2002; Benson et al., 2002a,b) have assumed a relatively strong depletion of the gas fraction, and a corresponding reduction of the star formation rate,…”
A BARYONIC SOLUTION TO THE MISSING SATELLITES PROBLEM (2012, background): “In more massive halos where gas is retained and star formation can begin, further suppression is expected from supernova feedback (Dekel & Silk 1986; Benson et al. 2002; Dekel & Woo 2003; Governato et al. 2007).”
The properties of satellite galaxies in simulations of galaxy formation (2009, background): “…conclusion from early semi-analytic studies that the so-called ‘satellite problem’ in the CDM cosmology (Klypin et al. 1999; Moore et al. 1999) disappears when proper account is taken of the baryonic processes involved in galaxy formation (Bullock et al. 2000; Benson et al. 2002; Somerville 2002).”
Galactic stellar haloes in the CDM model (2009, methodology): “…satellites and an improved understanding of the completeness of the Milky Way sample (Koposov et al. 2008; Tollerud et al. 2008, and referenes therein) have reduced the deficit of observed satellites to the point of qualitative agreement with the prediction of the model of Benson et al. (2002b).”
Breaking the hierarchy of galaxy formation (2005, methodology): “Benson et al. (2002) found that the virial velocity corresponding to the filtering mass lies between 50 and 60 km s−1 between redshifts 0 and 6 and drops rapidly for higher redshifts.”
A QUANTITATIVE EXPLANATION OF THE OBSERVED POPULATION OF MILKY WAY SATELLITE GALAXIES (2009, background): “The stellar velocity dispersion depends on the radial extent of the stellar tracers, which cannot be predicted within our simple modeling context (see also Benson et al. 2002).”