arXiv subjects

Antonaldo Diaferio

Publications and source records attributed to Antonaldo Diaferio.

111 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv1997

Survival of Substructure within Dark Matter Haloes

Using high resolution cosmological N-body simulations, we investigate the survival of dark matter satellites falling into larger haloes. Satellites preserve their identity for some time after merging. We compute their loss of mass, energy and angular momentum as dynamical friction, tidal forces and collisions with other satellites dissolve them. We also analyse the evolution of their internal structure. Satellites with less than a few per cent the mass of the main halo may survive for several billion years, whereas larger satellites rapidly sink into the center of the main halo potential well and lose their identity. Penetrating encounters between satellites are frequent and may lead to significant mass loss and disruption. Only a minor fraction of cluster mass (10 per cent on average) is bound to substructure at most redshifts of interest. We discuss the application of these results to the survival and extent of dark matter haloes associated with cluster galaxies, and to interactions between galaxies in clusters. We find that 35-40 per cent of galaxy dark matter haloes are disrupted by the present time. The fraction of satellites undergoing close encounters is similar to the fraction of interacting or merging galaxies in clusters at moderate redshift.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1997

Infall Regions of Galaxy Clusters

In hierarchical clustering, galaxy clusters accrete mass through the aggregation of smaller systems. Thus, the velocity field of the infall regions of clusters contains significant random motion superimposed on radial infall. Because the purely spherical infall model does not predict the amplitude of the velocity field correctly, methods estimating the cosmological density parameter Omega_0 based on this model yield unreliable biased results. In fact, the amplitude of the velocity field depends on local dynamics and only very weakly on the global properties of the universe. We use N-body simulations of flat and open universes to show that the amplitude of the velocity field of the infall regions of dark matter halos is a direct measure of the escape velocity within these regions. We can use this amplitude to estimate the mass of dark matter halos within a few megaparsecs from the halo center. In this region dynamical equilibrium assumptions do not hold. The method yields a mass estimate with better than 30% accuracy. If galaxies trace the velocity field of the infall regions of clusters reliably, this method provides a straightforward way to estimate the amount of mass surrounding rich galaxy clusters from redshift data alone.

astro-ph↗

arXiv1996

Galaxy Pairwise Velocity Distributions on Non-Linear Scales

The redshift-space correlation function $ξ_s$ for projected galaxy separations $\simless 1h^{-1}$ Mpc can be expressed as the convolution of the real-space correlation function with the galaxy pairwise velocity distribution function (PVDF). An exponential PVDF yields the best fit to the $ξ_s$ measured from galaxy samples of different redshift surveys. We show that this exponential PVDF is not merely a fitting function but arises from well defined gravitational processes. Two ingredients conspire to yield a PVDF with a nearly exponential shape: (i) the number density $n(σ)$ of systems with velocity dispersion $σ$; (ii) the unrelaxed dynamical state of most galaxy systems. The former ingredient determines the exponential tail and the latter the central peak of the PVDF. We compare the $ξ_s$ measured on non-linear scales from galaxy samples of the CfA redshift surveys with different models of the PVDF convolved with the measured real-space correlation function. This preliminary comparison indicates that the agreement between model and observations depends strongly on both the underlying cosmological model and the internal dynamics of galaxy systems. Neither parameter dominates. Moreover, the agreement depends sensitively on the accuracy of the galaxy position and velocity measurements.

astro-ph↗