Living with Neighbors. II. Statistical Analysis of Flybys and Mergers of Dark Matter Halos in Cosmological Simulations

TL;DR

This study statistically analyzes flybys and mergers of dark matter halos in cosmological simulations, revealing that flybys are more frequent than mergers, especially in dense environments and at lower masses, impacting galaxy evolution.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive statistical comparison of flybys and mergers across different masses, environments, and redshifts in cosmological simulations.

Findings

Flyby fraction increases significantly with decreasing halo mass and increasing density.

Flybys outnumber mergers by a factor of five at present epoch.

Flybys are more prevalent in high-density environments and for less massive halos.

Abstract

We present a statistical analysis of flybys of dark matter halos compared to mergers using cosmological $N$-body simulations. We mainly focus on gravitationally interacting target halos with mass of $10^{10.8}-10^{13.0}h^{-1}M_{\odot}$, and their neighbors are counted only when the mass ratio is 1:3$-$3:1 and the distance is less than the sum of the virial radii of target and neighbor. The neighbors are divided into the flyby or merger samples if the pair's total energy is greater or smaller, respectively, than the capture criterion with consideration of dynamical friction. The main results are as follows: (a) The flyby fraction increases by up to a factor of 50 with decreasing halo mass and by up to a factor of 400 with increasing large-scale density, while the merger fraction does not show any significant dependencies on these two parameters; (b) The redshift evolution of the flyby fraction is twofold, increasing with redshift at $0<z<1$ and remaining constant at $z>1$, while the merger fraction increases monotonically with redshift at $z=0\sim4$; (c) The multiple interactions with two or more neighbors are on average flyby-dominated, and their fraction has a mass and environment dependence similar to that for the flyby fraction; (d) Given that flybys substantially outnumber mergers toward $z=0$ (by a factor of five) and the multiple interactions are flyby-dominated, the flyby's contribution to galactic evolution is stronger than ever at the present epoch, especially for less massive halos and in the higher density environment. We propose a scenario that connects the evolution of the flyby and merger fractions to the hierarchical structure formation process.