Abstract
The Astrophysical Journal, 2013, Vol. 765, p. 22 It has been demonstrated that the inclusion of baryonic physics can alter the
dark matter densities in the centers of low-mass galaxies, making the central
dark matter slope more shallow than predicted in pure cold dark matter
simulations. This flattening of the dark matter profile can occur in the most
luminous subhalos around Milky Way-mass galaxies. Zolotov et al. (2012) have
suggested a correction to be applied to the central masses of dark matter-only
satellites in order to mimic the affect of (1) the flattening of the dark
matter cusp due to supernova feedback in luminous satellites, and (2) enhanced
tidal stripping due to the presence of a baryonic disk. In this paper, we apply
this correction to the z=0 subhalo masses from the high resolution, dark
matter-only Via Lactea II (VL2) simulation, and find that the number of massive
subhalos is dramatically reduced. After adopting a stellar mass to halo mass
relationship for the VL2 halos, and identifying subhalos that are (1) likely to
be destroyed by stripping and (2) likely to have star formation suppressed by
photo-heating, we find that the number of massive, luminous satellites around a
Milky Way-mass galaxy is in agreement with the number of observed satellites
around the Milky Way or M31. We conclude that baryonic processes have the
potential to solve the missing satellites problem.