  We use N-body simulations to model the tidal evolution of dark
matter-dominated dwarf spheroidal galaxies embedded in cuspy
Navarro-Frenk-White subhalos. Tides gradually peel off stars and dark matter
from a subhalo, trimming it down according to their initial binding energy.
This process strips preferentially particles with long orbital times, and comes
to an end when the remaining bound particles have crossing times shorter than a
fraction of the orbital time at pericentre. The properties of the final stellar
remnant thus depend on the energy distribution of stars in the progenitor
subhalo, which in turn depends on the initial density profile and radial
segregation of the initial stellar component. The stellar component may
actually be completely dispersed if its energy distribution does not extend all
the way to the subhalo potential minimum, although a bound dark remnant may
remain. These results imply that 'tidally-limited' galaxies, defined as systems
whose stellar components have undergone substantial tidal mass loss, neither
converge to a unique structure nor follow a single tidal track, as claimed in
earlier work. On the other hand, tidally limited dwarfs do have characteristic
sizes and velocity dispersions that trace directly the characteristic radius
($r_{max}$) and circular velocity ($V_{max}$) of the subhalo remnant. This
result places strong upper limits on the size of satellites whose unusually low
velocity dispersions are often ascribed to tidal effects. In particular, the
large size of kinematically-cold 'feeble giant' satellites like Crater 2 or
Antlia 2 cannot be explained as due to tidal effects alone in the Lambda Cold
Dark Matter scenario.

Astrophysics of Galaxies