Andrew Wetzel

and 2 more

In the Local Group, nearly all of the dwarf galaxies ($\mstar\lesssim10^9\msun$) that are satellites within $300\kpc$ (the virial radius) of the Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) have quiescent star formation and little-to-no cold gas. This contrasts strongly with comparatively isolated dwarf galaxies, which are almost all actively star-forming and gas-rich. This near dichotomy implies a _rapid_ transformation after falling into the halos of the MW or M31. We combine the observed quiescent fractions for satellites of the MW and M31 with the infall times of satellites from the ELVIS suite of cosmological simulations to determine the typical timescales over which environmental processes within the MW/M31 halos remove gas and quench star formation in low-mass satellite galaxies. The quenching timescales for satellites with $\mstar<10^8\msun$ are short, $\lesssim2\gyr$, and decrease at lower $\mstar$. These quenching timescales can be $1-2\gyr$ longer if environmental preprocessing in lower-mass groups prior to MW/M31 infall is important. We compare with timescales for more massive satellites from previous works, exploring satellite quenching across the observable range of $\mstar=10^{3-11}\msun$. The environmental quenching timescale increases rapidly with satellite $\mstar$, peaking at $\approx9.5\gyr$ for $\mstar\sim10^9\msun$, and rapidly decreases at higher $\mstar$ to less than $5\gyr$ at $\mstar>5\times10^9\msun$. Thus, satellites with $\mstar\sim10^9\msun$, similar to the Magellanic Clouds, exhibit the longest environmental quenching timescales.

Andrew Wetzel

and 2 more

In the Local Group, almost all satellite dwarf galaxies that are within the virial radius of the Milky Way (MW) and M31 exhibit strong environmental influence. The orbital histories of these satellites provide the key to understanding the role of the MW/M31 halo, lower-mass groups, and cosmic reionization on the evolution of dwarf galaxies. We examine the virial-infall histories of satellites with $\mstar=10^{3-9} \msun$ using the ELVIS suite of cosmological zoom-in dissipationless simulations of 48 MW/M31-like halos. Satellites at z = 0 fell into the MW/M31 halos typically $5-8 \gyr$ ago at z = 0.5 − 1. However, they first fell into any host halo typically $7-10 \gyr$ ago at z = 0.7 − 1.5. This difference arises because many satellites experienced “group preprocessing” in another host halo, typically of $\mvir \sim 10^{10-12} \msun$, before falling into the MW/M31 halos. Satellites with lower-mass and/or those closer to the MW/M31 fell in earlier and are more likely to have experienced group preprocessing; half of all satellites with $\mstar < 10^6 \msun$ were preprocessed in a group. Infalling groups also drive most satellite-satellite mergers within the MW/M31 halos. Finally, _none_ of the surviving satellites at z = 0 were within the virial radius of their MW/M31 halo during reionization (z > 6), and only <4% were satellites of any other host halo during reionization. Thus, effects of cosmic reionization versus host-halo environment on the formation histories of surviving dwarf galaxies in the Local Group occurred at distinct epochs and are separable in time.