  In the current concordance cosmology small halos are expected to be
completely dark and can significantly perturb low-mass galaxies during minor
merger interactions. These interactions may well contribute to the diversity of
the dwarf galaxy population. Dwarf galaxies in the field are often observed to
have peculiarities in their structure, morphology, and kinematics, as well as
strong bursts of star formation without apparent cause. We aim to characterize
the signatures of minor mergers of dwarf galaxies with dark satellites to aid
their observational identification. We explore and quantify a variety of
structural, morphological, and kinematic indicators of merging dwarf galaxies
and their remnants using a suite of hydrodynamical simulations. The most
sensitive indicators of mergers with dark satellites are large asymmetries in
the gaseous and stellar distributions, enhanced central surface brightness and
starbursts, and velocity offsets and misalignments between the cold gas and
stellar components. In general, merging systems span a wide range of values of
the most commonly used indicators, while isolated objects tend to have more
confined values. Interestingly, we find in our simulations that a significantly
off-centered burst of star formation can pinpoint the location of the dark
satellite. Observational systems with such characteristics are perhaps the most
promising for unveiling the presence of the hitherto, missing satellites.
