The AGORA High-Resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project

VII. Satellite quenching in zoom-in simulation of a Milky Way-mass halo

¹ Departamento de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de C.C. Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040 Madrid, Spain
² GMV, Space and Avionics Equipment, Isaac Newton, 11 Tres Cantos, E-28760 Madrid, Spain
³ Instituto de Física de Partículas y del Cosmos, IPARCOS, Fac. C.C. Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, E-28040 Madrid, Spain
⁴ Lund Observatory, Division of Astrophysics, Department of Physics, Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
⁵ Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
⁶ Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
⁷ Center for AstroPhysical Surveys, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
⁸ Institute for Data Innovation in Science, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
⁹ Seoul National University Astronomy Research Center, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea
¹⁰ Department of Physics, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
¹¹ Theoretical Astrophysics, Department of Earth and Space Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan
¹² Theoretical Joint Research, Forefront Research Center, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan
¹³ Kavli IPMU (WPI), The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan
¹⁴ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV 89154-4002, USA
¹⁵ Nevada Center for Astrophysics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV 89154-4002, USA
¹⁶ Department of Physics, Reed College, Portland, OR 97202, USA
¹⁷ Institute of Physics, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
¹⁸ Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, A.P. 70-264, 04510 Mexico, D.F., Mexico
¹⁹ Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
²⁰ Como Lake Center for Astrophysics, DiSAT, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Via Valleggio 11, IT-22100 Como, Italy
²¹ INAF – Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna, Via Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy
²² Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
²³ Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
²⁴ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
²⁵ Center for Cosmology and Computational Astrophysics, Institute for Advanced Study in Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
²⁶ Institute of Astronomy, School of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
²⁷ Departamento de Física Teórica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
²⁸ CIAFF, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
²⁹ Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
³⁰ Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, U-3046, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
³¹ Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

^⋆ Corresponding authors: ramorodr@ucm.es, wispedia@snu.ac.kr, thinhhn2@illinois.edu

Received: 30 December 2024
Accepted: 16 April 2025

Abstract

Context. Satellite galaxies experience multiple physical processes when interacting with their host halos, often leading to the quenching of star formation. In the Local Group, satellite quenching has been shown to be highly efficient, affecting nearly all satellites except the most massive ones. While recent surveys study Milky Way-analogs to assess how representative our Local Group is, the dominant physical mechanisms behind satellite quenching in Milky Way-mass halos remain under debate.

Aims. We analyze satellite quenching within the same Milky Way-mass halo simulated using various widely used astrophysical codes, each using different hydrodynamic methods and implementing different supernovae feedback recipes. The goal is to determine whether quenched fractions, quenching timescales, and the dominant quenching mechanisms are consistent across codes or if they show sensitivity to the specific hydrodynamic method and supernovae feedback physics employed.

Methods. We used a subset of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations of a Milky Way-mass halo from the multiple-code AGORA CosmoRun suite. Our analysis focuses on comparing satellite quenching across the different models and against observational data. We also analyzed the dominant mechanisms driving satellite quenching in each model.

Results. We find that the quenched fraction is consistent with the latest SAGA Survey results within its 1σ host-to-host scatter across all the models. Regarding quenching timescales, all the models reproduce the trend observed in the ELVES survey, Local Group observations, and previous simulations: The less massive the satellite, the shorter its quenching timescale. All of our models converge on the dominant quenching mechanisms: Strangulation halts cold gas accretion in all satellites, while ram pressure stripping is the predominant mechanism for gas removal, and it is particularly effective in satellites with M_*<10⁸ M_⊙. Nevertheless, the efficiency of the stripping mechanisms differs among the codes, showing a strong sensitivity to the different supernovae feedback implementations and/or hydrodynamic methods employed.