Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2008-10-03
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
To be published in the proceedings of the "Galactic and Stellar Dynamics 2008" conference. 4 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables
Scientific paper
10.1002/asna.200811079
Modeling interacting galaxies to reproduce observed systems is still a challenge due to the extended parameter space (among other problems). Orbit and basic galaxy parameters can be tackled by fast simulation techniques like the restricted N-body method, applied in the fundamental work by Toomre & Toomre (1972). This approach allows today for the study of millions of models in a short time. One difficulty for the classical restricted N-body method is the missing orbital decay, not allowing for galaxy mergers. Here we present an extension of the restricted N-body method including dynamical friction. This treatment has been developed by a quantitative comparison with a set of self-consistent merger simulations. By varying the dynamical friction (formalism, strength and direction), we selected the best-fitting parameters for a set of more than 250000 simulations. We show that our treatment reliably reproduces the orbital decay and tidal features of merging disk galaxies for mass ratios up to q=1/3 between host and satellite. We implemented this technique into our genetic algorithm based modeling code MINGA and present first results.
Petsch Hanns P.
Theis Christian
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