An analytical phase-space model for tidal caustics

Abstract

The class of tidal features around galaxies known variously as "shells" or "umbrellas" comprises debris that has arisen from high-mass-ratio mergers with low impact parameter; the nearly radial orbits of the debris give rise to a unique morphology, a universal density profile, and a tight correlation between positions and velocities of the material. As such they are accessible to analytical treatment, and can provide a relatively clean system for probing the gravitational potential of the host galaxy. In this work we present a simple analytical model that describes the density profile, phase-space distribution, and geometry of a shell, and whose parameters are directly related to physical characteristics of the interacting galaxies. The model makes three assumptions: that their orbit is radial, that the potential of the host is spherical at the shell radii, and that the satellite galaxy had a Maxwellian velocity distribution. We quantify the error introduced by the first two assumptions and show that selecting shells by their appearance on the sky is a sufficient basis to assume that these simplifications are valid. We further demonstrate that (1) given only an image of a shell, the radial gravitational force at the shell edge and the phase-space density of the satellite are jointly constrained, (2) that combining the image with measurements of either point line-of-sight velocities or integrated spectra will yield an independent estimate of the gravitational force at a shell, and (3) that an independent measurement of this force is obtained for each shell observed around a given galaxy, potentially enabling a determination of the galactic mass distribution.