Exploring the Sgr–Milky Way–disk Interaction Using High-resolution N-body Simulations

Abstract

Abstract The ongoing merger of the Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf galaxy with the Milky Way is believed to strongly affect the dynamics of the Milky Way’s disk. We present a suite of 13 N-body simulations, with 500 million–1 billion particles, modeling the interaction between the Sgr dwarf galaxy and the Galactic disk. To quantify the perturbation to the disk’s structure and dynamics in the simulation, we compute the number count asymmetry and the mean vertical velocity in a solar-neighborhood-like volume. We find that, overall, the trends in the simulations match those seen in a simple one-dimensional model of the interaction. We explore the effects of changing the mass model of Sgr, the orbital kinematics of Sgr, and the mass of the Milky Way halo. We find that none of the simulations match the observations of the vertical perturbation using Gaia Data Release 2. In the simulation that is the most similar, we find that the final mass of Sgr far exceeds the observed mass of the Sgr remnant, the asymmetry wavelength is too large, and the shape of the asymmetry does not match past z ≈ 0.7 kpc. We therefore conclude that our simulations support the conclusion that Sgr alone could not have caused the observed perturbation to the solar neighborhood.