Exploring the centre of mass properties of LG-like galaxies

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2023-05, Vol.523 (2), p.2759-2769
• Main Authors: Salomon, Jean-Baptiste, Libeskind, Noam, Hoffman, Yehuda
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Astrophysics; Galactic Astrophysics; Physics
• ISSN: 0035-8711; 1365-2966
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad1598

ABSTRACT From high resolution cosmological simulations of the Local Group in a realistic environment, namely HESTIA simulations, we study the position and kinematic deviations that may arise between the disc of a Milky Way (or Andromeda)-like galaxy and its halo. We focus on the three-dimensional analysis of the centres of mass (COM). The study presents two parts. We first consider individual particles to track down the nature and amplitude of the physical deviations of the COM with respect to the distance from the disc centre. Dark matter dominates the behaviour of the COM of all particles at all distances. But the total COM is also very close to the COM of stars. In the absence of a significant merger, the velocity offsets are marginal (10 km s−1) but the positional shifts can be important compared to the disc characteristics (>10 kpc). In the event of a massive accretion, discrepancies are of the same order as the recent finding for the MW under the Magellanic Clouds influence. In a second part, the accent is put on the study of various populations of subhaloes and satellites. We show that satellites properly represent the entire subhalo population. There exists strong mismatch in phase space between the satellites’ COM and the host disc. Moreover, the results are highly inhomogeneous between the simulations and thus, between the accretion histories. Finally, we point out that these shifts are mainly due to a few of the most massive objects.