On the tidal disruption of a spherical galaxy

Abstract

The disruption of a satellite galaxy as it undergoes collision with a massive perturber is investigated by numerical simulations. The models are restricted by a constant pericentric distance. The disruption of the satellite is estimated in terms of the density ratio rho/rhoR where rho is the initial density of the satellite and rhoR a critical density, the Roche density. The satellite suffers considerable disruption if the ratio is less than 1/2 and it survives the tidal encounter when the ratio is more than 1/2. For the same initial conditions, the circular orbit models show larger tidal effects than the other models.