The shapes of Milky Way satellites: looking for signatures of tidal stirring

TL;DR

This paper investigates the shapes of Milky Way satellite galaxies to find evidence of tidal stirring, using new shape measures on both simulations and real data, revealing features like bars and elongated structures consistent with the model.

Contribution

It introduces discrete shape measures based on the inertia tensor and Fourier modes, applied to simulations and real satellites, to detect subtle morphological features like bars.

Findings

Detection of inner bars in several satellites including Ursa Minor and Sagittarius.

Observation of elongated outer stellar distributions indicating tidal tails.

Shapes of satellites align with tidal stirring model predictions.

Abstract

We study the shapes of Milky Way satellites in the context of the tidal stirring scenario for the formation of dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The standard procedures used to measure shapes involve smoothing and binning of data and thus may not be sufficient to detect structural properties like bars, which are usually subtle in low surface brightness systems. Taking advantage of the fact that in nearby dwarfs photometry of individual stars is available we introduce discrete measures of shape based on the two-dimensional inertia tensor and the Fourier bar mode. We apply these measures of shape first to a variety of simulated dwarf galaxies formed via tidal stirring of disks embedded in dark matter halos and orbiting the Milky Way. In addition to strong mass loss and randomization of stellar orbits, the disks undergo morphological transformation that typically involves the formation of a triaxial bar after the first pericenter passage. These tidally induced bars persist for a few Gyr before being shortened towards a more spherical shape if the tidal force is strong enough. We test this prediction by measuring in a similar way the shape of nearby dwarf galaxies, satellites of the Milky Way. We detect inner bars in Ursa Minor, Sagittarius, LMC and possibly Carina. In addition, six out of eleven studied dwarfs show elongated stellar distributions in the outer parts that may signify transition to tidal tails. We thus find the shapes of Milky Way satellites to be consistent with the predictions of the tidal stirring model.