Diffuse Light in Milky Way–like Haloes

Abstract

Abstract We investigate the diffuse light (DL) content of dark matter haloes in the mass range 11.5 ≤ log M halo ≤ 13 , a range that also includes the dark matter halo of the Milky Way, taking advantage of a state-of-the-art semianalytic model run on the merger trees extracted from a set of high-resolution cosmological simulations. The fraction of DL in such relatively small haloes is found to progressively decrease from the high- to the low-mass end, in good agreement with analytic and numerical results from simulations, and in good agreement also with the fraction of the DL observed in the Milky Way and M31. Haloes with different masses have different efficiencies in producing DL: log M halo ≃ 13 is found to be the characteristic halo mass where the production of DL is the most efficient, while the overall efficiency decreases at both larger and smaller scales (this work). The DL content in this range of halo mass is the result of stellar stripping due to tidal interaction between satellites and their hosts (95%) and mergers between satellites and the central galaxy (5%), with preprocessed material, a subchannel of mergers and stripping, and so already included in the 100%, that contributes no more than 8% on average. The halo concentration is the main driver of the DL formation: more concentrated haloes have higher DL fractions that come from the stripping of more massive satellites in the high-halo-mass end, while dwarfs contribute mostly in the low-halo-mass end.