Resonant Thickening of Disks by Small Satellite Galaxies

We study the vertical heating and thickening of galaxy disks due to accretion of small satellites. Our simulations are restricted to axial symmetry, which largely eliminates numerical evolution of the target galaxy, but which requires the trajectory of the satellite to be along the symmetry axis of the target. We find that direct heating of disk stars by the satellite is not important, because the satellite's gravitational perturbation has little power at frequencies resonant with the vertical stellar orbits. The satellite does little damage to the disk until its decaying orbit resonantly excites large-scale disk bending waves. Bending waves can damp through dynamical friction from the halo or internal wave-particle resonances; we find that wave-particle resonances dominate the damping. The principal vertical heating mechanism is therefore dissipation of bending waves at resonances with stellar orbits in the disk. Energy can thus be deposited some distance from the point of impact of the satellite. The net heating from a tightly bound satellite can be substantial, but satellites that are tidally disrupted before they are able to excite bending waves do not thicken the disk.