Paper detail

Dynamical friction and scratches of orbiting satellite galaxies on host systems

We study the dynamical response of extended systems, hosts, to smaller systems, satellites, orbiting around the hosts using extremely high-resolution N-body simulations with up to one billion particles. This situation corresponds to minor mergers which are ubiquitous in the scenario of hierarchical structure formation in the universe. According to Chandrasekhar (1943), satellites create density wakes along the orbit and the wakes cause a deceleration force on satellites, i.e. dynamical friction. This study proposes an analytical model to predict the dynamical response of hosts as reflected in their density distribution and finds not only traditional wakes but also mirror images of over- and underdensities centered on the host. Our controlled N-body simulations with high resolutions verify the predictions of the analytical model. We apply our analytical model to the expected dynamical response of nearby interacting galaxy pairs, the Milky Way - Large Magellanic Cloud system and the M31 - M33 system.