Testing the galaxy collision induced formation scenario for the trail of dark matter deficient galaxies with the susceptibility of globular clusters to the tidal force

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether galaxy collisions can explain the formation of dark matter deficient galaxies with globular clusters, analyzing the dynamics and distribution of GCs post-collision in the NGC1052 system.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-analytic model to assess the galaxy collision scenario and evaluates the feasibility of GC formation and retention in dark matter deficient galaxies.

Findings

GCs likely formed 5-10 kpc from galaxy center

Extended GC distribution is difficult to reconcile with tidal stripping

Collision scenario requires 33-59 GCs to match observations

Abstract

It has been suggested that a trail of diffuse galaxies, including two dark matter deficient galaxies (DMDGs), in the vicinity of NGC1052 formed because of a high-speed collision between two gas-rich dwarf galaxies, one bound to NGC1052 and the other one on an unbound orbit. The collision compresses the gas reservoirs of the colliding galaxies, which in turn triggers a burst of star formation. In contrast, the dark matter and pre-existing stars in the progenitor galaxies pass through it. Since the high pressures in the compressed gas are conducive to the formation of massive globular clusters (GCs), this scenario can explain the formation of DMDGs with large populations of massive GCs, consistent with the observations of NGC1052-DF2 (DF2) and NGC1052-DF4. A potential difficulty with this `mini bullet cluster' scenario is that the observed spatial distributions of GCs in DMDGs are extended. GCs experience dynamical friction causing their orbits to decay with time. Consequently, their distribution at formation should have been even more extended than that observed at present. Using a semi-analytic model, we show that the observed positions and velocities of the GCs in DF2 imply that they must have formed at a radial distance of 5-10kpc from the center of DF2. However, as we demonstrate, the scenario is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the strong tidal forces from NGC1052 strip the extendedly distributed GCs from DF2, requiring 33-59 massive GCs to form at the collision to explain observations.