Satellites of LMC-Mass Dwarfs: Close Friendships Ruined by Milky Way Mass Halos

Understand

Motivated by the recent discovery of several dwarfs near the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), we study the accretion of massive satellites onto Milky Way (MW)/M31-like halos using the ELVIS suite of N-body simulations.

• We identify 25 surviving LMC-mass subhalos, and investigate the lower-mass satellites that were associated with these subhalos before they fell into the MW/M31 halos.
• Typically, 7% of the overall z=0 satellite population of MW/M31 halos were in a surviving LMC-group before falling into the MW/M31 halo.
• This fraction can vary between 1% and 25%, being higher for groups with higher mass and/or more recent infall times.