Bibcode
Casas, R. A.; Arias, V.; Peña-Ramírez, K.; Kroupa, P.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 424, Issue 3, pp. 1941-1951.
Advertised on:
8
2012
Citations
41
Refereed citations
36
Description
The long-term time evolution of tidal dwarf satellite galaxieswith two
different initial densities orbiting a host galaxy that resembles the
Milky Way has been studied using a large set of Newtonian N-body
simulations. From the simulations two maps of the orbital conditions
that lead to quasi-equilibrium objects were constructed. It has been
found that several orbits of the satellites allow for the existence, for
about 1 Gyr or more, of out-of-equilibrium bodies with high apparent
mass-to-light (M/L) ratios. Within this framework, the satellites in the
quasi-stable phase reproduce the observed satellite properties for about
16 per cent of the orbit for high-density progenitors and for about 66
per cent for progenitors with lower densities. An additional simulation
for a single satellite with initial mass of 107
M&sun; and Plummer radius of 0.15 kpc leads to remnants in
the quasi-equilibrium phase that simultaneously reproduce remarkably
well the observational quantities of the ultrafaint dwarf galaxies of
the Milky Way. This satellite in the quasi-stable phase reproduces the
observed satellite properties for about 42 per cent of the orbit. The
results suggest that a fraction of the observed satellites could
plausibly be galaxies without dark matter that have true M/L ratios much
lower than those measured. The inflated M/L ratios arise because they
are observed at the right time, along the right orbit and during the
quasi-equilibrium phase of their evolution. This is a viable explanation
for the high M/L ratios observed in all satellites as long as the
satellites are preferentially on certain orbits and are observed at
certain times. This could arise within the tidal dwarf galaxies scenario
if all satellites are created at the same time along a few specific
orbits that are particularly susceptible to the quasi-equilibrium phase.