The Local Group on FIRE: Dwarf galaxy populations across a suite of hydrodynamic simulations

Understand

We present a new set of high-resolution hydrodynamic cosmological zoom-in simulations that apply the Feedback In Realistic Environments (FIRE) physics to both Local Group (LG)-like and isolated Milky Way (MW)-like volumes (ten host systems in total with baryonic particle mass $\simeq 3,500-7,000\,M_\odot$).

• We study the stellar mass functions, circular velocity or mass profiles, and velocity dispersions of the dwarf galaxy populations.
• The simulations reproduce the stellar mass function and central densities of MW satellite dwarfs for $M_\ast \geq10^{5.5}\,M_\odot$ and predict the existence of $\sim3$ unidentified galaxies with $M_\ast\sim10^5\,M_\odot$ within $300$ kpc of the MW.
• Overall, we find no evidence for the classical missing satellites or too-big-to-fail (TBTF) problems for satellite galaxies in our sample.