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The environment of dwarf spheroidal satellites; ram pressure, tides and external radiation fields

Lucio Mayer
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Abstract

We discuss the role of environmental mechanisms in the evolution of dwarf galaxy satellites using high-resolution N-Body+SPH simulations that include simultaneously tidal forces, ram pressure and heating from ionizing radiation fields. Tidally induced bar-buckling instabilities can transform a rotating disky dwarf into a pressure supported spheroidal. Efficient gas removal requires instead a combination of tidal mass loss and ram pressure stripping in a diffuse gaseous corona around the primary system. The efficiency of ram pressure depends strongly on how extended the gas remains during the evolution. Bar driven inflows that tend to drive the gas to the bottom of the potential well can be opposed by the heating from ultraviolet radiation. We show that even fairly massive dwarfs ($V_{peak} >$ 30 km/s) would be stripped of their gas over a few Gyr if they enter the Milky Way halo at $z > 2$ thanks to the effect of the cosmic UV background. Gas mass loss can be much faster, occurring in less than 1 Gyr, if dwarf satellites have their first close approach with the primary at the epoch of bulge formation. Indeed at that time the primary galaxy should have a FUV luminosity comparable to that of major present-day starbursts, resulting in a local radiation field even more intense than the cosmic background.

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Lucio Mayer. 2005-05-04. The environment of dwarf spheroidal satellites; ram pressure, tides and external radiation fields. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743921305003789

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