Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:28:11.622Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Interactions of Satellite Galaxies in Cosmological Dark Matter Halos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2013

Alexander Knebe*
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University, Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia
Stuart P. D. Gill
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University, Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia
Brad K. Gibson
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University, Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia
*
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We present a statistical analysis of the interactions between satellite galaxies in cosmological dark matter halos taken from fully self-consistent high-resolution simulations of galaxy clusters. We show that the number distribution of satellite encounters has a tail that extends to as many as three to four encounters per orbit. On average 30% of the substructure population had at least one encounter (per orbit) with another satellite galaxy. However, this result depends on the age of the dark matter host halo with a clear trend for more interactions in younger systems. We also report a correlation between the number of encounters and the distance of the satellites to the centre of the cluster — satellite galaxies closer to the centre experience more interactions. However, this can be simply explained by the radial distribution of the substructure population and merely reflects the fact that the density of satellites is higher in those regions.

In order to find substructure galaxies we applied (and present) a new technique based upon the N-body code MLAPM. This new halo finder MHF (MLAPM’s halo finder) acts with exactly the same accuracy as the N-body code itself and is therefore free of any bias and spurious mismatch between simulation data and halo finding precision related to numerical effects.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2004

References

Barnes, J. E., & Hut, P. 1986, Natur, 324, 446 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, A. J., Frenk, C. S., Lacey, C. G., Baugh, C. M., & Cole, S. 2002, MNRAS, 333, 177 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertschinger, E. 1998, ARA&A, 36, 599 Google Scholar
Davis, M., Efstathiou, G., Frenk, C. S., & White, S. D. M. 1985, ApJ, 292, 371 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Efstathiou, G., Davis, M., White, S. D. M., & Frenk, C. S. 1985, ApJS, 57, 241 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, S. P. D., Knebe, A., & Gibson, B. K. 2004a, MNRAS, in pressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, S. P. D., Knebe, A., & Gibson, B. K. 2004b, in pressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, S. P. D., Knebe, A., Gibson, B. K., & Dopita, M. A. 2004c, MNRAS, submittedGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, E., Navarro, J., Taylor, J., Stadel, J., & Quinn, T. 2003, ApJ, 584, 541 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibata, R. A., & Lewis, G. F. 1998, ApJ, 500, 575 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, K., Hernquist, L., & Bolte, M. 1996, ApJ, 465, 278 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klypin, A. A., & Shandarin, S. F. 1983, MNRAS, 204, 891 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klypin, A., Kravtsov, A., Valenzuela, O., & Prada, F. 1999, ApJ, 522, 82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knebe, A., Green, A., & Binney, J. 2001, MNRAS, 325, 845 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knebe, A., Kawata, D., Gill, S. P. D., & Gibson, B. K. 2004, in preparationGoogle Scholar
Moore, B. 1996, Natur, 379, 613 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spergel, D. N., Verde, L., Peiris, H. V., Komatsu, E., Nolta, M. R., Bennett, C. L., Halpern, M., Hinshaw, G., Jarosik, N., Kogut, A., Limon, M., Meyer, S. S., Page, L., Tucker, G. S., Weiland, J. L., Wollack, E., & Wright, E. L. 2003, ApJS, 148, 175 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van den Bergh, S. 1994, ApJ, 428, 617 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, S. D. M., & Rees, M. 1978, MNRAS, 183, 341 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhao, H. 1998, ApJL, 500, 149 CrossRefGoogle Scholar