Cosmological evolution of dark matter subhaloes under tidal stripping by growing Milky Way-like galaxies
Approach
Ultra-high-resolution N-body simulations supply subhalo mass histories and orbital parameters. Eccentricities and pericentres are compared with satellite measurements from Gaia.
Main result
More than 80 per cent of the analysed subhaloes have lost mass. Their peak masses typically occur around redshift one, with smaller systems reaching the transition earlier.
Scientific implications
The work relates present satellite populations to their earlier growth and finds orbital distributions consistent with nearby observed satellites.
Scope and limitations
Agreement in orbital statistics supports this CDM framework but does not uniquely identify the dark matter particle or eliminate other models.