No Stream Left Unscathed: The imprint of a host galaxy
Abstract
Stellar streams from disrupted globular clusters are excellent probes of dark matter (DM) subhalos. Observed Milky Way streams display a remarkable diversity of features: spurs, gaps, kinks, cocoons, and density variations, many attributed to subhalo encounters. But how much of this diversity arises from the host itself? We simulate ∼15,000 globular cluster streams across four Milky Way-mass halos from the FIRE-2 cosmological simulations, evolved in basis function expansion potentials capturing the evolving disk, halo, and large-scale structure while excluding small-scale perturbers such as DM subhalos and giant molecular clouds. We find that roughly three quarters of streams develop complex features from the host potential, such as spurs, kinks, and cocoon-like envelopes. Even the smoothest streams exhibit 10--25\% width variation along their track and host overdensities and gaps at scales of ∼2∘, squarely in the 1∘--5∘ range predicted for subhalo-induced gaps. Pericentric distance is the primary predictor of stream morphology, with ∼15 kpc separating smooth from disturbed streams and circular orbits beyond ∼20 kpc producing the smoothest streams. Only ∼70 out of ∼15,000 streams are free of detectable wiggles in the track at any scale. Analogs to observed features, such as the GD-1 spur and the ATLAS--Aliqa Uma kink, emerge even without the presence of subhalos. As next-generation surveys (LSST, Euclid, and Roman) resolve stream structure across hundreds of streams, the baseline established here, streams evolved without small-scale perturbers, becomes essential for extracting DM substructure constraints.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{arora2026stream,
title = {{No Stream Left Unscathed: The imprint of a host galaxy}},
author = {Arpit Arora and Peter S. Ferguson and Jacob Nibauer and Nora Shipp and Videep Reddy and Eugene Vasiliev and Jack Kohm and Laurella C. Marin and Adrian M. Price-Whelan and Denis Erkal and Sarah Pearson and Andrew Wetzel and Jeremy Bailin and Robert Feldmann},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.16200},
eprint = {2605.16200},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16200},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - No Stream Left Unscathed: The imprint of a host galaxy
AU - Arpit Arora
AU - Peter S. Ferguson
AU - Jacob Nibauer
AU - Nora Shipp
AU - Videep Reddy
AU - Eugene Vasiliev
AU - Jack Kohm
AU - Laurella C. Marin
AU - Adrian M. Price-Whelan
AU - Denis Erkal
AU - Sarah Pearson
AU - Andrew Wetzel
AU - Jeremy Bailin
AU - Robert Feldmann
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.16200
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16200
AB - Stellar streams from disrupted globular clusters are excellent probes of dark matter (DM) subhalos. Observed Milky Way streams display a remarkable diversity of features: spurs, gaps, kinks, cocoons, and density variations, many attributed to subhalo encounters. But how much of this diversity arises from the host itself? We simulate ∼15,000 globular cluster streams across four Milky Way-mass halos from the FIRE-2 cosmological simulations, evolved in basis function expansion potentials capturing the evolving disk, halo, and large-scale structure while excluding small-scale perturbers such as DM subhalos and giant molecular clouds. We find that roughly three quarters of streams develop complex features from the host potential, such as spurs, kinks, and cocoon-like envelopes. Even the smoothest streams exhibit 10--25\% width variation along their track and host overdensities and gaps at scales of ∼2^∘, squarely in the 1^∘--5^∘ range predicted for subhalo-induced gaps. Pericentric distance is the primary predictor of stream morphology, with ∼15 kpc separating smooth from disturbed streams and circular orbits beyond ∼20 kpc producing the smoothest streams. Only ∼70 out of ∼15,000 streams are free of detectable wiggles in the track at any scale. Analogs to observed features, such as the GD-1 spur and the ATLAS--Aliqa Uma kink, emerge even without the presence of subhalos. As next-generation surveys (LSST, Euclid, and Roman) resolve stream structure across hundreds of streams, the baseline established here, streams evolved without small-scale perturbers, becomes essential for extracting DM substructure constraints.
ER -