A correlation between the number of satellites and the baryonic
  bulge-to-total ratio extending beyond the Local Group
  Recent observations of the fields surrounding a few Milky-Way-like galaxies
in the local Universe have become deep enough to enable investigations of the
predictions of the standard LCDM cosmological model down to small scales
outside the Local Group. Motivated by an observed correlation between the
number of dwarf satellites (N_sat) and the bulge-to-total baryonic mass ratios
(B/T) of the three main galaxies in the Local Group, i.e. the Milky Way,
Andromeda, and Triangulum (M33), we use published data of three well-studied
galaxies outside the Local Group, namely M81, Centaurus A, and M101, and their
confirmed satellites, and we find a strong and significant correlation between
N_sat and B/T. This presents itself in contradiction with the hitherto
published results from cosmological simulations reporting an absence of a
correlation between N_sat and B/T in the LCDM model. We conclude that, based on
the current data, the N_sat vs. B/T correlation is no longer a property
confined to only the Local Group.
