Streams on FIRE: Populations of Detectable Stellar Streams in the Milky Way and FIRE
Nora Shipp, Nondh Panithanpaisal, Lina Necib, Robyn Sanderson, Denis, Erkal, Ting S. Li, Isaiah B. Santistevan, Andrew Wetzel, Lara R. Cullinane,, Alexander P. Ji, Sergey E. Koposov, Kyler Kuehn, Geraint F. Lewis, Andrew B., Pace, Daniel B. Zucker, Joss Bland-Hawthorn

TL;DR
This study compares simulated and observed stellar streams in the Milky Way, finding general agreement in number and mass but discrepancies in orbital parameters, and predicts many undetected streams and tails awaiting future surveys.
Contribution
First detailed comparison of FIRE-2 simulation streams with Milky Way observations, including mock survey detection estimates and analysis of orbital and detectability differences.
Findings
Simulated and observed streams have similar numbers and mass distributions.
Discrepancies in orbital parameters, with FIRE streams at larger pericenters and apocenters.
Many low-surface-brightness streams and tails are predicted to be undetected in current surveys.
Abstract
We present the first detailed study comparing the populations of stellar streams in cosmological simulations to observed Milky Way dwarf galaxy streams. In particular, we compare streams identified around Milky Way analogs in the FIRE-2 simulations to stellar streams observed by the Southern Stellar Stream Spectroscopic Survey (S5). For an accurate comparison between the stream populations, we produce mock Dark Energy Survey (DES) observations of the FIRE streams and estimate the detectability of their tidal tails and progenitors. The number and stellar mass distributions of detectable stellar streams is consistent between observations and simulations. However, there are discrepancies in the distributions of pericenters and apocenters, with the detectable FIRE streams, on average, forming at larger pericenters (out to > 110 kpc) and surviving only at larger apocenters (> 40 kpc) than…
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Taxonomy
TopicsStellar, planetary, and galactic studies
