Are Red Tidal Features Unequivocal Signatures of Major Dry Mergers?

We use a cosmological numerical simulation to study the tidal featuresproduced by a minor merger with an elliptical galaxy. We find that thesimulated tidal features are quantitatively similar to the red tidal features,i.e., dry tidal features, recently found in deep images of elliptical galaxiesat intermediate redshifts. The minor merger in our simulation does not triggerstar formation due to active galactic nuclei heating. Therefore, both the tidalfeatures and the host galaxy are red, i.e. a dry minor merger. The stellar massof the infalling satellite galaxy is about 10^10 Msun, and the tidal debrisreach the surface brightness of mu_R~27 mag arcsec^-2. Thus, we conclude thattidal debris from minor mergers can explain the observed dry tidal features inellipticals at intermediate redshifts, although other mechanisms (such as majordry mergers) may also be important.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap