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We investigate the influence of stellar migration caused by minor mergers(mass ratio from 1:70 to 1:8) on the radial distribution of chemical abundancesin the disks of Milky Way-like galaxies during the last four Gyr. A GPU-basedpure N-body tree-code model without hydrodynamics and star formation was used.We computed a large set of mergers with different initial satellite masses,positions, and orbital velocities. We find that there is no significantmetallicity change at any radius of the primary galaxy in the case of accretionof a low-mass satellite of 10$^9$ M$_{\odot}$ (mass ratio 1:70) except for thespecial case of prograde satellite motion in the disk plane of the host galaxy.The accretion of a satellite of a mass $\gtrsim3\times10^9$ M$_{\odot}$ (massratio 1:23) results in an appreciable increase of the chemical abundances atgalactocentric distances larger than $\sim10$ kpc. The radial abundancegradient flattens in the range of galactocentric distances from 5 to 15 kpc inthe case of a merger with a satellite with a mass $\gtrsim3\times10^9$M$_{\odot}$. There is no significant change in the abundance gradient slope inthe outer disk (from $\sim15$ kpc up to 25 kpc) in any merger while the scatterin metallicities at a given radius significantly increases for most of thesatellite's initial masses/positions compared to the case of an isolatedgalaxy. This argues against attributing the break (flattening) of the abundancegradient near the optical radius observed in the extended disks of MilkyWay-like galaxies only to merger-induced stellar migration.

On the Influence of Minor Mergers on the Radial Abundance Gradient in Disks of Milky Way-like Galaxies