Luminous satellites versus dark subhalos: Clustering in the milky way

Abstract

The observed population of the Milky Way satellite galaxies offers a unique testing ground for galaxy formation theory on small scales. Our novel approach was to investigate the clustering of the known Milky Way satellite galaxies and to quantify the amount of substructure within their distribution using a two-point correlation function statistic in each of three spaces: configuration space, line-of-sight velocity space, and four-dimensional (4D) phase space. These results were compared to those for three sets of subhalos in the Via Lactea II cold dark matter (CDM) simulation defined to represent the luminous dwarfs. We found no evidence at a significance level above 2σ of substructure within the distribution of the Milky Way satellite galaxies in any of the three spaces. The "luminous" subhalo sets are more strongly clustered than are the Milky Way satellites in all three spaces and over a broader range of scales in 4D phase space. Each of the "luminous" subhalo sets are clustered as a result of substructure within their line-of-sight velocity space distributions at greater than 3σ significance, whereas the Milky Way satellite galaxies are randomly distributed in line-of-sight velocity space. While our comparison is with only one CDM simulation, the inconsistencies between the Milky Way satellite galaxies and the Via Lactea II subhalo sets for all clustering methods suggest a potential new "small-scale" tension between CDM theory and the observed Milky Way satellites. Future work will obtain a more robust comparison between the observed Milky Way satellites and CDM theory by studying additional simulations. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.