Abstract
Gravitational interactions - mergers and fly-by encounters - between galaxies play a key role as the drivers of their evolution. Here we perform a cosmological N-body simulation using the tree-particle-mesh code GOTPM, and attempt to separate out the effects of mergers and fly-bys between dark matter halos. Once close pair halos are identified by the halo finding algorithm PSB, they are classified into mergers ($E_{12}$ < 0) and fly-by encounters ($E_{12}$ > 0) based on the total energy ($E_{12}$) between two halos. The fly-by and merger fractions as functions of redshift, halo masses, and ambient environments are calculated and the result shows the following.(1) Among Milky-way sized halos ($0.33-2.0{\times}10^{12}h^{-1}M{\odot}$), $5.37{\pm}0.03%$ have experienced major fly-bys and $7.98{\pm}0.04%$ have undergone major mergers since z ~ 1; (2) Among dwarf halos ($0.1-0.33{\times}10^{12}h^{-1}M{\odot}$), $6.42{\pm}0.02%$ went through major fly-bys and $9.51{\pm}0.03%$ experienced major mergers since z ~ 1; (3) Milky-way sized halos in the cluster environment experienced fly-bys (mergers) 4-11(1.5-1.7) times more frequently than those in the field since z ~ 1; and (4) Approaching z = 0, the fly-by fraction decreases sharply with the merger fraction remaining constant, implying that the empirical pair/merger fractions (that decrease from z ~ 1) are in fact driven by the fly-bys, not by the mergers themselves.
