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Galaxy disc heating as a result of minor mergers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

M. T. Tapia ,
M. Balcells  and
M. C. Eliche-Moral
M. T. Tapia
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea S/N, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain email: ttapia@iac.es
M. Balcells
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea S/N, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain email: ttapia@iac.es
M. C. Eliche-Moral
Affiliation:
Departamento de Astrofísica y Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Facultad de C.C. Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain email: cem@astrax.fis.ucm.es
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Abstract

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We perform a sample of N-body simulations of a minor merger between a Milky Way type galaxy and a satellite, which is density scaled version of the primary galaxy. In this suite of collisionless runs we change the value of some critical parameters like the luminous mass ratio between the two galaxies (1 : 6, 1 : 9), the type of orbit (direct or prograde) and the number of particles (185,000, 555,000 and 1,850,000). We estimate the disc thickening by measuring the median of the vertical scale and we find that that the merger increases the scale height in a factor of ≈2 in all the remnants.

Keywords

methods: n-body simulationsgalaxies: interactionsgalaxies: structure

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