The preferred direction of infalling satellite galaxies in the Local Group

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations of the Local Group to analyze the anisotropic infall of satellite galaxies and the distribution of stripped material, revealing alignment with the cosmic web and implications for stellar halo formation.

Contribution

It demonstrates that satellite infall and tidal debris are anisotropic and aligned with large-scale structures, providing new insights into galaxy assembly and halo composition.

Findings

Satellite infall points are anisotropic and aligned with large-scale structure.

Stripped dark matter and stars form ellipsoidal, aligned distributions within halos.

Outer halo regions are influenced by the cosmic web, affecting satellite remnants.

Abstract

Using a high resolution DM simulation of the Local Group (LG), conducted within the framework of the Constrained Local UniversE Simulation (CLUES) project, we investigate the nature of how satellites of the MW and M31 are accreted. Satellites of these galaxies are accreted anisotropically, entering the virial radius of their hosts from specific "spots" with respect to the large scale structure. Furthermore, material which is tidally stripped from these satellites is also, at z=0, distributed anisotropically and is characterized by an ellipsoidal sub-volume embedded in the halo. The angular pattern created by the locus of satellite infall points and the projected stripped DM is investigated within a coordinate system determined by the location of the LG companion and the simulated Virgo cluster across concentric shells ranging from 0.1 to 5 r_vir. Remarkably, the principal axis of the ellipsoidal sub-volume shows a coherent alignment extending from well within the halo to a few r_vir. A spherical harmonics transform applied to the angular distributions confirms the visual impression: namely, the angular distributions of both the satellites entry points and stripped DM is dominated by the l=2 quadrupole term, whose major principal axis is aligned across the shells considered. It follows that the structure of the outer (r>0.5 r_vir) regions of the main halos is closely related to the cosmic web within which it is embedded. Given the hypothesis that a large fraction of the stellar halo of the Milky Way has been accreted from satellites, the present results can be applied to the stellar halo of the MW and M31. We predict that the remnants of tidally stripped satellites should be embedded in streams of material composed of dark matter and stars. The present results can therefore shed light on the existence of satellites embedded within larger streams of matter, such as the Segue 2 satellite.