Open AccessEncounters between spherical galaxies – II. Systems with a dark halo
Author(s) -
GonzálezGarcía A. C.,
Van Albada T. S.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09243.x
Subject(s) - physics , halo , dark matter , astrophysics , dark matter halo , cuspy halo problem , spheroid , astronomy , galaxy , galactic halo , elliptical galaxy , biochemistry , chemistry , in vitro
We perform N ‐body simulations of encounters between spherical systems surrounded by a spherical halo. Following a preceding paper with a similar aim, the initial systems include a spherical Jaffe model for the luminous matter and a Hernquist model for the halo. The merger remnants from this sample are mainly slowly rotating, prolate spheroids with a radially anisotropic velocity distribution. The results are compared with real‐life ellipticals and with the models without halo in Paper I. We argue that elliptical galaxies with evidence of dark matter could be formed in the field via a merger of spheroids surrounded by a dark matter halo, while ellipticals with no evidence of dark matter might be formed via a merger of two spheroids in a cluster.