Simulating the "hidden giant" in cold and self-interacting dark matter models

Understand

We perform a series of controlled N-body simulations to study realizations of the recently discovered Antlia 2 galaxy in cold dark matter (CDM) and self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) scenarios.

• Our simulations contain six benchmark models, where we vary the initial halo concentration and the self-scattering cross section.
• We adopt well-motivated initial stellar and halo masses, and our fiducial orbit has a small pericenter.
• After evolving in the Milky Way's tidal field, the simulated galaxies experience significant mass loss and their stellar distributions expand accordingly.