Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2009-08-18
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
6 pages, 2 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of the `Galaxy Wars: Stellar Populations and Star Formation in Interact
Scientific paper
Physics lectures always refer to the tides as a disruptive effect. However, tides can also be compressive. When the potential of two galaxies overlap, as happens during a merger, fully compressive tides can develop and have a strong impact on the dynamics of substructures such as star clusters or tidal dwarf galaxies. Using N-body simulations of a large set of mergers, we noticed the importance of these tidal modes at cluster scale. With a model of the Antennae galaxies, we conclude that the positions and timescales of these tidal modes match the actual distribution of young clusters. A detailed study of the statistics of the compressive tides shows a stunning correlation between this purely gravitational effect and the observed properties of the star clusters. In this contribution, we introduce the concept of compressive tide and show its relevance in the special case of the Antennae galaxies. We extend our conclusions to a broad range of parameters and discuss their implications on several critical points such as the infant mortality, multiple star formation epochs in clusters or the age distribution.
Boily Christian M.
Naab Thorsten
Renaud Florent
Theis Ch
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