Vast planes of satellites in a high resolution simulation of the Local Group: comparison to Andromeda

Abstract

We search for vast planes of satellites (VPoS) in a high resolution simulation of the Local Group performed by the CLUES project, which improves significantly the resolution of former similar studies. We use a simple method for detecting planar configurations of satellites, and validate it on the known plane of M31. We implement a range of prescriptions for modelling the satellite populations, roughly reproducing the variety of recipes used in the literature, and investigate the occurence and properties of planar structures in these populations. The structure of the simulated satellite systems is strongly non-random and contains planes of satellites, predominantly co-rotating, with, in some cases, sizes comparable to the plane observed in M31 by Ibata et al.. However the latter is slightly richer in satellites, slightly thinner and has stronger co-rotation, which makes it stand out as overall more exceptional than the simulated planes, when compared to a random population. Although the simulated planes we find are generally dominated by one real structure, forming its backbone, they are also partly fortuitous and are thus not kinematically coherent structures as a whole. Provided that the simulated and observed planes of satellites are indeed of the same nature, our results suggest that the VPoS of M31 is not a coherent disc and that one third to one half of its satellites must have large proper motions perpendicular to the plane.

References in corpus (12)

• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• A Vast Thin Plane of Co-rotating Dwarf Galaxies Orbiting the Andromeda Galaxy
• The Luminosity Function of the Milky Way Satellites
• The Quenching of the Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies in the Reionization Era
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• Co-orbiting satellite galaxy structures are still in conflict with the distribution of primordial dwarf galaxies
• A radiative transfer scheme for cosmological reionization based on a local Eddington tensor
• Velocity anti-correlation of diametrically opposed galaxy satellites in the low redshift universe
• A thousand shadows of Andromeda: rotating planes of satellites in the Millennium-II cosmological simulation
• Satellite Systems around Galaxies in Hydrodynamic Simulations
• Balancing mass and momentum in the Local Group
• Co-orbiting planes of sub-halos are similarly unlikely around paired and isolated hosts

Cited by in corpus (20)

• HST Proper Motions of NGC 147 and NGC 185: Orbital Histories and Test of Dynamically Coherent Andromeda Satellite Plane
• Evolution of galactic planes of satellites in the EAGLE simulation
• The Role of Baryons in Creating Statistically Significant Planes of Satellites around Milky Way-Mass Galaxies
• On the Stability of Satellite Planes I: Effects of Mass, Velocity, Halo Shape and Alignment
• On the Co-Orbitation of Satellite Galaxies Along the Great Plane of Andromeda: NGC 147, NGC 185, and Expectations from Cosmological Simulations
• Do halos that form early, have high concentration, are part of a pair, or contain a central galaxy potential host more pronounced planes of satellite galaxies?
• An updated detailed characterization of planes of satellites in the MW and M31
• Planes of satellites around simulated disc galaxies: I.- Finding high-quality planar configurations from positional information and their comparison to MW/M31 data
• The imprint of galaxy mergers on satellite planes in a cosmological context
• The shapes and alignments of the satellites of the Milky Way and Andromeda
• New dwarf galaxy candidates in the sphere of influence of the Sombrero galaxy
• Hidden from view: Coupled Dark Sector Physics and Small Scales
• Planes of satellites around simulated disk galaxies II: Time-persistent planes of kinematically-coherent satellites in $\Lambda$CDM
• On the origin of the asymmetric dwarf galaxy distribution around Andromeda
• Proper Motions of the Satellites of M31
• Dwarf Galaxies in the MATLAS Survey: The satellite system of NGC474 under scrutiny with MUSE
• Sardinia Radio Telescope observations of Local Group dwarf galaxies -- I. The cases of NGC6822, IC1613, and WLM
• Caught in the cosmic web: environmental effects on subhalo abundance and internal density profiles
• IFUM Integrated Field Spectroscopy of Ten M104 Satellite Galaxy Candidates
• Stochastic Order Redshift Technique (SORT): a simple, efficient and robust method to improve cosmological redshift measurements