The Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model of hierarchical structure formation
has emerged as the dominant paradigm in galaxy formation theory owing
to its remarkable ability to explain a plethora of observations on
large scales. Yet, on galactic and sub-galactic scales the CDM model
has been neither convincingly verified nor disproved, and several
outstanding issues remain unresolved. Using high-resolution, numerical
simulations I investigate whether the abundance of substructure
predicted by CDM models is in conflict with the existence of thin,
dynamically fragile galactic disks. The simulation campaign is based on
a hybrid approach combining cosmological simulations of galaxy-sized
CDM halos to derive the properties of infalling subhalo populations and
controlled numerical experiments of repeated satellite impacts onto
initially-thin, fully-formed disk galaxies. In contrast to what can be
inferred from statistics of the z=0 surviving substructure, I show that
accretions of massive subhalos onto the central regions of host halos,
where the galactic disks reside, since z ~ 1 should be common. I
demonstrate that these accretion events severely perturb the galactic
disks and produce a wealth of distinctive morphological and dynamical
signatures including: (1) long-lived, low-surface brightness, ringlike
features in the outskirts; (2) considerable thickening and heating at
all radii; (3) prominent flaring; (4) long-lived, lopsidedness of
typical amplitude omparable to that measured in observational samples
of galactic disks; and (5) substantial tilting and warping. The final
distribution of disk stars exhibits a complex vertical structure that
is well described by a standard ''thin-thick'' disk decomposition. I
compare one of the resulting ringlike features in the simulations to
the Monoceros Ring stellar structure in the MW. The comparison shows
quantitative agreement in spatial distribution and kinematics,
suggesting that such observed complex stellar components may arise
naturally as disk stars are excited by encounters with CDM
substructure. These results suggest that satellite-disk interactions of
the kind expected in LCDM models play a significant role in setting the
structure of disk galaxies and driving galaxy evolution. Upcoming
galactic structure surveys and strometric satellites may be able to
distinguish between competing cosmological models by testing whether
the detailed structure of galactic disks is as excited as predicted by
the CDM paradigm.
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