The Dependence of Halo Clustering on Subhalo Anisotropy and Planarity

We show that host cold dark matter (CDM) haloes cluster in a manner that depends upon the anisotropy/planarity of their subhaloes, indicating an environmental dependence to subhalo anisotropy/planarity. The spatial distribution of satellite galaxies about central galaxies and correspondingly, the spatial distribution of subhaloes about host haloes have been subjects of interest for two decades. Important questions include the degree to which satellites are distributed anisotropically about their hosts or exhibit planarity in their distributions and the degree to which this anisotropy depends upon the environment of the host-satellite system. We study the spatial distributions of subhaloes in a cosmological N-body simulation. We find that CDM subhaloes are distributed in a manner that is strongly anisotropic/planar, in agreement with prior work, though our presentation is complementary. The more novel result is that this anisotropy has an environmental dependence. Systems which exhibit less (more) anisotropy and less (more) planarity cluster more strongly (weakly). Systems in which subhaloes reside further from their host centres cluster more weakly. None of these clustering effects are caused by a correlation between subhalo anisotropy/planarity and other properties on which host halo clustering is known to depend, such as concentration, spin parameter, host halo shape, or subhalo count. We discuss the impact of this result on the anisotropy of satellites as predicted by CDM, its testability, and its possible relation to anisotropy observed about the large galaxies of the Local Group.