Tidal Shocking by Extended Mass Distributions

Abstract

We derive expressions for the tidal field exerted by a spherically symmetric galaxy having an extended mass distribution, and use our analysis to calculate tidal perturbations and heating of stars in a globular cluster or a satellite galaxy orbiting in the external potential. We consider a Hernquist model and several power-law models for the primary. We integrate the tidal force over accurate orbits in the given potential by using the impulse approximation and by introducing adiabatic corrections that allow for the time variation of the force. We compare these results with the conventional straight path approximation. We also check the results with direct N-body simulations and find very good agreement. Heating on highly eccentric orbits dominates as the adiabatic corrections strongly damp the energy change on low eccentricity orbits. The results are illustrated for the example of globular cluster NGC 6712. For the orbital eccentricities higher than 0.9 the future lifetime of NGC 6712 is less than 10^{10} yr. Our analysis can be used to study tidal interactions of star clusters and galaxies in a semi-analytical manner.