Satellites of LMC-Mass Dwarfs: Close Friendships Ruined by Milky Way
  Mass Halos
  Motivated by the recent discovery of several dwarfs near the Large Magellanic
Cloud (LMC), we study the accretion of massive satellites onto Milky Way
(MW)/M31-like halos using the ELVIS suite of N-body simulations. We identify 25
surviving LMC-mass subhalos, and investigate the lower-mass satellites that
were associated with these subhalos before they fell into the MW/M31 halos.
Typically, 7% of the overall z=0 satellite population of MW/M31 halos were in a
surviving LMC-group before falling into the MW/M31 halo. This fraction can vary
between 1% and 25%, being higher for groups with higher mass and/or more recent
infall times. Groups of satellites disperse rapidly in phase space after
infall, and their distances and velocities relative to the group center become
statistically similar to the overall satellite population after 4-8 Gyr. We
quantify the likelihood that satellites were associated with an LMC-mass group
as a function of both distance and velocity relative to the LMC at z=0. The
close proximity in distance of the nine Dark Energy Survey candidate dwarf
galaxies to the LMC suggest that ~2-4 are likely associated with the LMC.
Furthermore, if several of these dwarfs are genuine members, then the LMC-group
probably fell into the MW very recently, <2 Gyr ago. If the connection with the
LMC is established with follow-up velocity measurements, these "satellites of
satellites" represent prime candidates to study the affects of group
pre-processing on lower mass dwarfs.
