The Magellanic Clouds Are Very Rare in the IllustrisTNG Simulations

Abstract

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) form the closest interacting galactic system to the Milky Way, therewith providing a laboratory to test cosmological models in the local Universe. We quantify the likelihood for the Magellanic Clouds (MCs) to be observed within the ΛCDM model using hydrodynamical simulations of the IllustrisTNG project. The orbits of the MCs are constrained by proper motion measurements taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia. The MCs have a mutual separation of dMCs=24.5kpc and a relative velocity of vMCs=90.8kms−1, implying a specific phase-space density of fMCs,obs≡(dMCs·vMCs)−3=9.10×10−11km−3s3kpc−3. We select analogues to the MCs based on their stellar masses and distances in MW-like halos. None of the selected LMC analogues have a higher total mass and lower Galactocentric distance than the LMC, resulting in >3.75σ tension. We also find that the fMCs distribution in the highest resolution TNG50 simulation is in 3.95σ tension with observations. Thus, a hierarchical clustering of two massive satellites like the MCs in a narrow phase-space volume is unlikely in ΛCDM, presumably because of short merger timescales due to dynamical friction between the overlapping dark matter halos. We show that group infall led by an LMC analogue cannot populate the Galactic disc of satellites (DoS), implying that the DoS and the MCs formed in physically unrelated ways in ΛCDM. Since the 20∘ alignment of the LMC and DoS orbital poles has a likelihood of P=0.030 (2.17σ), adding this χ2 to that of fMCs gives a combined likelihood of P=3.90×10−5 (4.11σ).

Keywords

• Magellanic Clouds (990)
• Milky Way Galaxy (1054)
• Galaxy interactions (600)
• Galaxy mergers (608)
• Dynamical friction (422)
• Cold Dark Matter (265)