Structure and kinematics of tidally limited satellite galaxies in LCDM

Understand

We use N-body simulations to model the tidal evolution of dark matter-dominated dwarf spheroidal galaxies embedded in cuspy Navarro-Frenk-White subhalos.

• Tides gradually peel off stars and dark matter from a subhalo, trimming it down according to their initial binding energy.
• This process strips preferentially particles with long orbital times, and comes to an end when the remaining bound particles have crossing times shorter than a fraction of the orbital time at pericentre.
• The properties of the final stellar remnant thus depend on the energy distribution of stars in the progenitor subhalo, which in turn depends on the initial density profile and radial segregation of the initial stellar component.