Physical Origin of the Planar Alignment of Satellite Galaxies

The Milky Way (MW) and other systems including M31 and Cen A have flattened structures of their satellites (Disk of Satellites, DoS). Such structures are rare in simulations under the ΛCDM paradigm. DoS is known to depend mainly on 1) the alignment of satellite orbits and 2) the degree of central concentration of satellites. In this work, we examine quantitatively how these two parameters affect the flatness of a system. We find that the MW-like DoS is rare in IllustrisTNG100 simulation because its two parameters are out of the 1-s range and furthermore the MW has a structure more flattened than the other systems having similar parameters. Besides, we propose a new criterion for the MW-like systems superseding the conventional ones such as major-minor axis ratio of the MW's DoS with a value of 0.183. Each satellite system has a specific orbital combination and thus has a particular distribution of its parameters (and thus flatness). The median of the distribution is set as the representative value of each system. And the representative value of the MW can be used as a new criterion for classifying the MW-like DoS. We reconstruct the orbital combination of the observed MW satellites using GAIA DR2 data and find the systems in the simulation that have representative values similar to the new criterion from the reconstructed MW system. This allows us a new interpretation on the rarity of MW-like DoS in cosmological simulations.