Marius Cautun
The aftermath of the Great Collision between our Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud
Cautun, Marius; Deason, Alis J; Frenk, Carlos S; McAlpine, Stuart
Authors
Professor Alis Deason alis.j.deason@durham.ac.uk
Professor
Professor Carlos Frenk c.s.frenk@durham.ac.uk
Professor
Stuart McAlpine
Abstract
The Milky Way (MW) offers a uniquely detailed view of galactic structure and is often regarded as a prototypical spiral galaxy. But recent observations indicate that the MW is atypical: it has an undersized supermassive black hole at its centre; it is surrounded by a very low mass, excessively metal-poor stellar halo; and it has an unusually large nearby satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Here, we show that the LMC is on a collision course with the MW with which it will merge in 2.4+1.2 −0.8 Gyr (68 per cent confidence level). This catastrophic and long-overdue event will restore the MW to normality. Using the EAGLE galaxy formation simulation, we show that, as a result of the merger, the central supermassive black hole will increase in mass by up to a factor of 8. The Galactic stellar halo will undergo an equally impressive transformation, becoming 5 times more massive. The additional stars will come predominantly from the disrupted LMC, but a sizeable number will be ejected on to the halo from the stellar disc. The post-merger stellar halo will have the median metallicity of the LMC, [Fe/H] = −0.5 dex, which is typical of other galaxies of similar mass to the MW. At the end of this exceptional event, the MW will become a true benchmark for spiral galaxies, at least temporarily.
Citation
Cautun, M., Deason, A. J., Frenk, C. S., & McAlpine, S. (2018). The aftermath of the Great Collision between our Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 483(2), 2185-2196. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3084
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Nov 8, 2018 |
Online Publication Date | Nov 13, 2018 |
Publication Date | Nov 13, 2018 |
Deposit Date | Jan 10, 2019 |
Publicly Available Date | Jan 10, 2019 |
Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
Print ISSN | 0035-8711 |
Electronic ISSN | 1365-2966 |
Publisher | Royal Astronomical Society |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 483 |
Issue | 2 |
Pages | 2185-2196 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3084 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1305642 |
Files
Published Journal Article
(2.9 Mb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.
You might also like
The impact of the Large Magellanic Cloud on dark matter direct detection signals
(2023)
Journal Article
Cosmic Ballet III: Halo spin evolution in the cosmic web
(2021)
Journal Article
The twisted dark matter halo of the Milky Way
(2020)
Journal Article
The Milky Way total mass profile as inferred from Gaia DR2
(2020)
Journal Article
Evolution of galactic planes of satellites in the eagle simulation
(2019)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search