Dynamics of stream-subhalo interactions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a formalism to model how dark matter subhaloes create gaps in cold stellar streams, analyzing simulation data to relate gap properties to subhalo characteristics and stream dynamics.

Contribution

It develops a comprehensive model for stream-subhalo interactions in angle-frequency space, applicable to general geometries and validated against N-body simulations.

Findings

Gaps grow faster downstream from the progenitor.

Minimum gap density decreases with increasing subhalo mass.

Model accurately reproduces simulation results across different times.

Abstract

We develop a formalism for modelling the impact of dark matter subhaloes on cold thin streams. Our formalism models the formation of a gap in a stream in angle-frequency space and is able to handle general stream and impact geometry. We analyse an $N$-body simulation of a cold stream formed from a progenitor on an eccentric orbit in an axisymmetric potential, which is perturbed by a direct impact from a $10^8 M_\odot$ subhalo, and produce a complete generative model of the perturbed stream that matches the simulation well at a range of times. We show how the results in angle-frequency space can be related to physical properties of the gaps and that previous results for more constrained simulations are recovered. We demonstrate how our results are dependent upon the mass of the subhalo and the location of the impact along the stream. We find that gaps formed far downstream grow more rapidly than those closer to the progenitor due to the more ordered nature of the stream members far from the progenitor. Additionally, we show that the minimum gap density plateaus in time at a value that decreases with increasing subhalo mass.