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Register a new userQuenching of satellite galaxies of Milky Way analogues: reconciling theory and observations
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The vast majority of low-mass satellite galaxies around the Milky Way and M31 appear virtually devoid of cool gas and show no signs of recent or ongoing star formation. Cosmological simulations demonstrate that such quenching is expected and is due to the harsh environmental conditions that satellites face when joining the Local Group (LG). However, recent observations of Milky Way analogues in the SAGA survey present a very different picture, showing the majority of observed satellites to be actively forming stars, calling into question the realism of current simulations and the typicality of the LG. Here we use the ARTEMIS suite of high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to carry out a careful comparison with observations of dwarf satellites in the LG, SAGA, and the Local Volume (LV) survey. We show that differences between SAGA and the LG and LV surveys, as well as between SAGA and the ARTEMIS simulations, can be largely accounted for by differences in the host mass distributions and observational selection effects, specifically that low-mass satellites which have only recently been accreted are more likely to be star-forming, have a higher optical surface brightness, and are therefore more likely to be included in the SAGA survey. This picture is confirmed using data from the deeper LV survey, which shows pronounced quenching at low masses, in accordance with the predictions of LCDM-based simulations.
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We present the star formation histories (SFHs) of 20 faint M31 satellites ($-12 lesssim M_V lesssim -6$) that were measured by modeling sub-horizontal branch (HB) depth color-magnitude diagrams constructed from Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging. Reinforcing previous results, we find that virtually all galaxies quenched between 3 and 9 Gyr ago, independent of luminosity, with a notable concentration $3-6$ Gyr ago. This is in contrast to the Milky Way (MW) satellites, which are generally either faint with ancient quenching times or luminous with recent ($<3$ Gyr) quenching times. We suggest that systematic differences in the quenching times of M31 and MW satellites may be a reflection of the varying accretion histories of M31 and the MW. This result implies that the formation histories of low-mass satellites may not be broadly representative of low-mass galaxies in general. Among the M31 satellite population we identify two distinct groups based on their SFHs: one with exponentially declining SFHs ($tau sim 2$ Gyr) and one with rising SFHs with abrupt quenching. We speculate how these two groups could be related to scenarios for a recent major merger involving M31. The Cycle 27 HST Treasury survey of M31 satellites will provide well-constrained ancient SFHs to go along with the quenching times we measure here. The discovery and characterization of M31 satellites with $M_V gtrsim -6$ would help quantify the relative contributions of reionization and environment to quenching of the lowest-mass satellites.
We perform a comprehensive study of Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxies to constrain the fundamental properties of dark matter (DM). This analysis fully incorporates inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution and detectability of MW satellites and marginalizes over uncertainties in the mapping between galaxies and DM halos, the properties of the MW system, and the disruption of subhalos by the MW disk. Our results are consistent with the cold, collisionless DM paradigm and yield the strongest cosmological constraints to date on particle models of warm, interacting, and fuzzy dark matter. At $95%$ confidence, we report limits on (i) the mass of thermal relic warm DM, $m_{rm WDM} > 6.5 mathrm{keV}$ (free-streaming length, $lambda_{rm{fs}} lesssim 10,h^{-1} mathrm{kpc}$), (ii) the velocity-independent DM-proton scattering cross section, $sigma_{0} < 8.8times 10^{-29} mathrm{cm}^{2}$ for a $100 mathrm{MeV}$ DM particle mass (DM-proton coupling, $c_p lesssim (0.3 mathrm{GeV})^{-2}$), and (iii) the mass of fuzzy DM, $m_{phi}> 2.9 times 10^{-21} mathrm{eV}$ (de Broglie wavelength, $lambda_{rm{dB}} lesssim 0.5 mathrm{kpc}$). These constraints are complementary to other observational and laboratory constraints on DM properties.
We revisit the well known discrepancy between the observed number of Milky Way (MW) dwarf satellite companions and the predicted population of cold dark matter (CDM) sub-halos, in light of the dozen new low luminosity satellites found in SDSS imaging data and our recent calibration of the SDSS satellite detection efficiency, which implies a total population far larger than these dozen discoveries. We combine a dynamical model for the CDM sub-halo population with simple, physically motivated prescriptions for assigning stellar content to each sub-halo, then apply observational selection effects and compare to the current observational census. As expected, models in which the stellar mass is a constant fraction F(Omega_b/Omega_m) of the sub-halo mass M_sat at the time it becomes a satellite fail for any choice of F. However, previously advocated models that invoke suppression of gas accretion after reionization in halos with circular velocity v_c <~ 35 km/s can reproduce the observed satellite counts for -15 < M_V < 0, with F ~ 10^{-3}. Successful models also require strong suppression of star formation BEFORE reionization in halos with v_c <~ 10 km/s; models without pre-reionization suppression predict far too many satellites with -5 < M_V < 0. Our models also reproduce the observed stellar velocity dispersions ~ 5-10 km/s of the SDSS dwarfs given the observed sizes of their stellar distributions, and model satellites have M(<300 pc) ~ 10^7 M_sun as observed even though their present day total halo masses span more than two orders of magnitude. Our modeling shows that natural physical mechanisms acting within the CDM framework can quantitatively explain the properties of the MW satellite population as it is presently known, thus providing a convincing solution to the `missing satellite problem.
We conduct a comprehensive and statistical study of the luminosity functions (LFs) for satellite galaxies, by counting photometric galaxies from HSC, DECaLS and SDSS around isolated central galaxies (ICGs) and paired galaxies from the SDSS/DR7 spectroscopic sample. Results of different surveys show very good agreement. The satellite LFs can be measured down to $M_Vsim-10$, and for central primary galaxies as small as $8.5<log_{10}M_ast/M_odot<9.2$ and $9.2<log_{10}M_ast/M_odot<9.9$, implying there are on average 3--8 satellites with $M_V<-10$ around LMC-mass ICGs. The bright end cutoff of satellite LFs and the satellite abundance are both sensitive to the magnitude gap between the primary and its companions, indicating galaxy systems with larger magnitude gaps are on average hosted by less massive dark matter haloes. By selecting primaries with stellar mass similar to our MW, we discovered that i) the averaged satellite LFs of ICGs with different magnitude gaps to their companions and of galaxy pairs with different colour or colour combinations all show steeper slopes than the MW satellite LF; ii) there are on average more satellites with $-15<M_V<-10$ than those in our MW; iii) there are on average 1.5 to 2.5 satellites with $M_V<-16$ around ICGs, consistent with our MW; iv) even after accounting for the large scatter predicted by numerical simulations, the MW satellite LF is uncommon at $M_V>-12$. Hence the MW and its satellite system are statistically atypical of our sample of MW-mass systems. In consequence, our MW is not a good representative of other MW-mass galaxies. Strong cosmological implications based on only MW satellites await additional discoveries of fainter satellites in extra-galactic systems. Interestingly, the MW satellite LF is typical among other MW-mass systems within 40~Mpc in the local Universe, perhaps implying the Local Volume is an under-dense region.
Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we examine the quenching of satellite galaxies around isolated Milky Way-like hosts in the local Universe. We find that the efficiency of satellite quenching around isolated galaxies is low and roughly constant over two orders of magnitude in satellite stellar mass ($M_{*}$ = $10^{8.5}-10^{10.5} , M_{odot}$), with only $sim~20%$ of systems quenched as a result of environmental processes. While largely independent of satellite stellar mass, satellite quenching does exhibit clear dependence on the properties of the host. We show that satellites of passive hosts are substantially more likely to be quenched than those of star-forming hosts, and we present evidence that more massive halos quench their satellites more efficiently. These results extend trends seen previously in more massive host halos and for higher satellite masses. Taken together, it appears that galaxies with stellar masses larger than about $10^{8}~M_{odot}$ are uniformly resistant to environmental quenching, with the relative harshness of the host environment likely serving as the primary driver of satellite quenching. At lower stellar masses ($< 10^{8}~M_{odot}$), however, observations of the Local Group suggest that the vast majority of satellite galaxies are quenched, potentially pointing towards a characteristic satellite mass scale below which quenching efficiency increases dramatically.
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