The orientation and kinematics of inner tidal tails around dwarf
  galaxies orbiting the Milky Way
  Using high-resolution collisionless N-body simulations we study the
properties of tidal tails formed in the immediate vicinity of a two-component
dwarf galaxy evolving in a static potential of the Milky Way (MW). The stellar
component of the dwarf is initially in the form of a disk and the galaxy is
placed on an eccentric orbit motivated by CDM-based cosmological simulations.
We measure the orientation, density and velocity distribution of the stars in
the tails. Due to the geometry of the orbit, in the vicinity of the dwarf,
where the tails are densest and therefore most likely to be detectable, they
are typically oriented towards the MW and not along the orbit. We report on an
interesting phenomenon of `tidal tail flipping': on the way from the pericentre
to the apocentre the old tails following the orbit are dissolved and new ones
pointing towards the MW are formed over a short timescale. We also find a tight
linear relation between the velocity of stars in the tidal tails and their
distance from the dwarf. Using mock data sets we demonstrate that if dwarf
spheroidal (dSph) galaxies in the vicinity of the MW are tidally affected their
kinematic samples are very likely contaminated by tidally stripped stars which
tend to artificially inflate the measured velocity dispersion. The effect is
stronger for dwarfs on their way from the peri- to the apocentre due to the
formation of new tidal tails after pericentre. Realistic mass estimates of dSph
galaxies thus require removal of these stars from kinematic samples.
