Bibcode
DOI
Peñarrubia, Jorge; Benson, Andrew J.; Martínez-Delgado, David; Rix, Hans Walter
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 645, Issue 1, pp. 240-255.
Advertised on:
7
2006
Journal
Citations
58
Refereed citations
54
Description
We explore whether stellar tidal streams can provide information on the
secular, cosmological evolution of the Milky Way's gravitational
potential and on the presence of subhalos. We carry out long-term
(Δt~tHubble) N-body simulations of disrupting satellite
galaxies in a semianalytic Galaxy potential in which the dark matter
halo and the subhalos evolve according to a ΛCDM cosmogony. All
simulations are constrained to end up with the same position and
velocity at present. Our simulations account for (1) the secular
evolution of the host halo's mass, size, and shape, (2) the presence of
subhalos, and (3) dynamical friction. We find that tidal stream
particles respond adiabatically to the Galaxy growth, so that, at
present, the energy and angular momentum distribution is exclusively
determined by the present Galaxy potential. In other words, all
present-day observables can only constrain the present mass distribution
of the Galaxy independent of its past evolution. We also show that if
the full phase-space distribution of a tidal stream is available, we can
accurately determine (1) the present Galaxy's shape and (2) the amount
of mass loss from the stream's progenitor, even if this evolution
spanned a cosmologically significant epoch.