scholarly journals Origin of the Galactic Halo: accretion vs. in situ formation

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (S334) ◽  
pp. 34-37
Author(s):  
Emanuele Spitoni ◽  
Fiorenzo Vincenzo ◽  
Francesca Matteucci ◽  
Donatella Romano

AbstractWe test the hypothesis that the classical and ultra-faint dwarf spheroidal satellites of the our Galaxy have been the building blocks of the Galactic halo by comparing their [O/Fe] and [Ba/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] patterns with the ones observed in Galactic halo stars. The [O/Fe] ratio deviates substantially from the observed abundance ratios in the Galactic halo stars for [Fe/H] > -2 dex, while they overlap for lower metallicities. On the other hand, for the neutron capture elements, the discrepancy is extended at all the metallicities, suggesting that the majority of stars in the halo are likely to have been formed in situ. We present the results for a model considering the effects of an enriched gas stripped from dwarf satellites on the chemical evolution of the Galactic halo. We find that the resulting chemical abundances of the halo stars depend on the adopted infall time-scale, and the presence of a threshold in the gas for star formation.

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (S317) ◽  
pp. 241-246
Author(s):  
Allyson A. Sheffield ◽  
Kathryn V. Johnston ◽  
Katia Cunha ◽  
Verne V. Smith ◽  
Steven R. Majewski

AbstractWe report chemical abundances for a sample of 66 M giants with high S/N high-resolution spectroscopy in the inner halo of the Milky Way. The program giant stars have radial velocities that vary significantly from those expected for stars moving on uniform circular orbits in the Galactic disk. Thus, based on kinematics, we expect a sample dominated by halo stars. Abundances are derived for α-elements and neutron capture elements. By analyzing the multi-dimensional abundance space, the formation site of the halo giants – in-situ or accreted – can be assessed. Of particular interest are a class of stars that form in-situ, deep in the Milky Way's gravitational potential well, but are “kicked out” of the disk into the halo due to a perturbation event. We find: (1) our sample is dominated by accreted stars and (2) tentative evidence of a small kicked-out population in our Milky Way halo sample.


Metals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 873
Author(s):  
Chun-Liang Yeh ◽  
Chih-Yao Ke

The fabrication of intermetallic/ceramic composites by combustion synthesis in the mode of self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) was investigated in the Al–Ni–Ti system with the addition of B4C. Two reaction systems were employed: one was used to produce the composites of xNiAl–2TiB2–TiC with x = 2–7, and the other was used to synthesize yNi3Al–2TiB2–TiC with y = 2–7. The reaction mechanism of the Al–Ni–Ti system was strongly influenced by the presence of B4C. The reaction of B4C with Ti was highly exothermic, so the reaction temperature and combustion velocity decreased due to increasing levels of Ni and Al in the reactant mixture. The activation energies of Ea = 110.6 and 172.1 kJ/mol were obtained for the fabrication of NiAl- and Ni3Al-based composites, respectively, by the SHS reaction. The XRD (X-ray diffraction) analysis showed an in situ formation of intermetallic (NiAl and Ni3Al) and ceramic phases (TiB2 and TiC) and confirmed no reactions taking place between Ti and Al or Ni. The microstructure of the product revealed large NiAl and Ni3Al grains and small TiB2 and TiC particles. With the addition of TiB2 and TiC, the hardness of NiAl and Ni3Al was considerably increased and the toughness was also improved.


2020 ◽  
Vol 634 ◽  
pp. A33
Author(s):  
Leire Beitia-Antero ◽  
Ana Inés Gómez de Castro ◽  
Raúl de la Fuente Marcos

Context. Deep GALEX UV data show that the extreme outskirts of some spiral galaxies are teeming with star formation. Such young stellar populations evolving so far away from the bulk of their host galaxies challenge our overall understanding of how star formation proceeds at galactic scales. It is at present unclear whether our own Milky Way may also exhibit ongoing and recent star formation beyond the conventional edge of the disk (∼15 kpc). Aims. Using Gaia DR2 data, we aim to determine if such a population is present in the Galactic halo, beyond the nominal radius of the Milky Way disk. Methods. We studied the kinematics of Gaia DR2 sources with parallax values between 1/60 and 1/30 milliarcseconds towards two regions that show abnormally high values of extinction and reddening; the results are compared with predictions from GALAXIA Galactic model. We also plotted the color–magnitude (CM) diagrams with heliocentric distances computed inverting the parallaxes, and studied the effects of the large parallax errors by Monte Carlo sampling. Results. The kinematics point towards a Galactic origin for one of the regions, while the provenance of the stars in the other is not clear. A spectroscopic analysis of some of the sources in the first region confirms that they are located in the halo. The CM diagram of the sources suggests that some of them are young.


2004 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 121-127
Author(s):  
Christine Allen ◽  
T.D. Kinman

AbstractQuite recently, a significant number of OB stars far from the galactic plane have been found, situated at z- distances ranging from several hundreds of pc to several kpc. The short lifetimes of these stars pose problems for their interpretation in terms of the standard picture of star formation. Different mechanisms have been put forward to explain the existence of these stars, either within the conventional view, or postulating star formation in the galactic halo itself. These mechanisms range from arguing that they are misidentified evolved or abnormal stars, to postulating powerful ejection mechanisms for young disk stars; in situ formation also admits several variants. We have collected from the literature a list of young stars far from the plane, for which the evidence of youth seems convincing. We discuss two possible formation mechanisms for these stars: ejection from the plane as the result of dynamical evolution of small clusters (Poveda et al. 1967) and in situ formation, via induced shocks created by spiral density waves (Martos et al. 1999). We compute galactic orbits for these stars, and identify the stars that could be explained by one or the other mechanism. We find that about 90 percent of the stars can be accounted for by the cluster ejection mechanism, that is, they can be regarded as runaway stars in the galactic halo.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (S351) ◽  
pp. 24-33
Author(s):  
Miho N. Ishigaki

AbstractI would like to review recent efforts of detailed chemical abundance measurements for field Milky Way halo stars. Thanks to the advent of wide-field spectroscopic surveys up to a several kpc from the Sun, large samples of field halo stars with detailed chemical measurements are continuously expanding. Combination of the chemical information and full six dimensional phase-space information is now recognized as a powerful tool to identify cosmological accretion events that have built a sizable fraction of the present-day stellar halo. Future observational prospects with wide-field spectroscopic surveys and theoretical prospects with supernova nucleosynthetic yields are also discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 632 ◽  
pp. A4 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Di Matteo ◽  
M. Haywood ◽  
M. D. Lehnert ◽  
D. Katz ◽  
S. Khoperskov ◽  
...  

Previous studies based on the analysis of Gaia DR2 data have revealed that accreted stars, possibly originating from a single progenitor satellite, are a significant component of the halo of our Galaxy, potentially constituting most of the halo stars at [Fe/H] <  −1 within a few kpc from the Sun and beyond. In this paper, we couple astrometric data from Gaia DR2 with elemental abundances from APOGEE DR14 to characterise the kinematics and chemistry of in-situ and accreted populations up to [Fe/H] ∼ −2. Accreted stars appear to significantly impact the galactic chemo–kinematic relations, not only at [Fe/H] <  −1, but also at metallicities typical of the thick and metal-poor thin discs. They constitute about 60% of all stars at [Fe/H] <  −1, the remaining 40% being made of (metal-weak) thick-disc stars. We find that the stellar kinematic fossil record shows the imprint left by this accretion event, which heated the old galactic disc. We are able to age-date this kinematic imprint, showing that the accretion occurred between nine and 11 Gyr ago, and that it led to the last significant heating of the galactic disc. An important fraction of stars with abundances typical of the (metal-rich) thick disc, and heated by this interaction, is now found in the galactic halo. Indeed, about half of the kinematically defined halo at few kpc from the Sun is composed of metal-rich thick-disc stars. Moreover, we suggest that this metal-rich thick-disc component dominates the stellar halo of the inner Galaxy. The new picture that emerges from this study is one where the standard, non-rotating in-situ halo population, the collapsed halo, seems to be more elusive than ever.


2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane K Feuillet ◽  
Sofia Feltzing ◽  
Christian L Sahlholdt ◽  
Luca Casagrande

ABSTRACT We characterize the Gaia–Enceladus–Sausage kinematic structure recently discovered in the Galactic halo using photometric metallicities from the SkyMapper survey, and kinematics from Gaia  radial velocities measurements. By examining the metallicity distribution functions (MDFs) of stars binned in kinematic/action spaces, we find that the $\sqrt{J_R}$ versus Lz space allows for the cleanest selection of Gaia–Enceladus–Sausage stars with minimal contamination from disc or halo stars formed in situ or in other past mergers. Stars with $30 \le \sqrt{J_R} \le 50$ (kpc km s−1)1/2 and −500 ≤ Lz ≤ 500 kpc km s−1 have a narrow MDF centred at [Fe/H] = −1.17 dex with a dispersion of 0.34 dex. This [Fe/H] estimate is more metal-rich than literature estimates by 0.1−0.3 dex. Based on the MDFs, we find that selection of Gaia–Enceladus–Sausage stars in other kinematic/action spaces without additional population information leads to contaminated samples. The clean Gaia–Enceladus–Sausage sample selected according to our criteria is slightly retrograde and lies along the blue sequence of the high VT halo colour magnitude diagram dual sequence. Using a galaxy mass–metallicity relation derived from cosmological simulations and assuming a mean stellar age of 10 Gyr, we estimate the mass of the Gaia–Enceladus–Sausage progenitor satellite to be 108.85–9.85 M⊙, which is consistent with literature estimates based on disc dynamic and simulations. Additional information on detailed abundances and ages would be needed for a more sophisticated selection of purely Gaia–Enceladus–Sausage stars.


2020 ◽  
Vol 636 ◽  
pp. A111 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Aoki ◽  
W. Aoki ◽  
P. François

Context. Metal-poor components of dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way could be remnants of the building blocks of the Galactic halo structure. Low-mass stars that are currently observed as metal-poor stars are expected to have formed in chemically homogeneous clusters in the early phases of galaxy formation. They should have already disintegrated and should exhibit large scatter in abundance ratios of some sets of elements (e.g., Sr/Ba) in the Milky Way field stars. However, chemical abundance ratios are expected to cluster in very metal-poor stars in dwarf galaxies because the number of clusters formed in individual galaxies in the very early phase is expected to be quite limited. Aims. We examine the possible clustering of abundance ratios of Sr and Ba in the Sextans dwarf galaxy to test for the clustering star formation scenario. Methods. We investigate a total of 11 elements (C, Mg, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Mn, Ni, Zn, Sr, Ba) in five stars in the Sextans dwarf galaxy. Previous studies suggest that these have similar abundance ratios. In this study, we focus on the abundance ratio of Sr to Ba. The observations are based on high-resolution spectroscopy (R = 40 000) using the Subaru Telescope High Dispersion Spectrograph. Results. The distribution of α/Fe abundance ratios of the Sextans dwarf galaxy stars is slightly lower than the average of the values of stars in the Galactic halo. The Sr/Ba abundance ratios for the five metal-poor stars are in good agreement, and this clumping is distinctive compared to the [Sr/Ba] spread seen in the metal-poor halo stars. We find that the probability of such clumping is very small if the Sextans stars have distributions of Sr and Ba abundances similar to halo stars. Conclusions. In the Sextans dwarf galaxy, five out of six of the extremely metal-poor stars for which abundance ratios are well studied so far show clear clustering in abundance ratios including Sr/Ba. These observations tend to support the hypothesis that these stars were formed from a cloud of homogeneous chemical composition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (3) ◽  
pp. 3276-3294
Author(s):  
E Lacchin ◽  
F Matteucci ◽  
F Vincenzo ◽  
M Palla

ABSTRACT We test the integrated galactic initial mass function (IGIMF) on the chemical evolution of 16 ultrafaint dwarf (UFD) galaxies discussing in detail the results obtained for three of them: Boötes I, Boötes II, and Canes Venatici I, taken as prototypes of the smallest and the largest UFDs. These objects have very small stellar masses (∼103–104 M⊙) and quite low metallicities ([Fe/H] &lt; −1.0 dex). We consider four observational constraints: the present-day stellar mass, the [α/Fe] versus [Fe/H] relation, the stellar metallicity distribution function and the cumulative star formation history. Our model follows in detail the evolution of several chemical species (H, He, α-elements, and Fe). We take into account detailed nucleosynthesis and gas flows (in and out). Our results show that the IGIMF, coupled with the very low star formation rate predicted by the model for these galaxies (∼10−4–10−6 M⊙yr−1), cannot reproduce the main chemical properties, because it implies a negligible number of core-collapse SNe and even Type Ia SNe, the most important polluters of galaxies. On the other hand, a constant classical Salpeter IMF gives the best agreement with data, but we cannot exclude that other formulations of the IGIMF could reproduce the properties of these galaxies. Comparing with Galaxy data, we suggest that UFDs could not be the building blocks of the entire Galactic halo, although more data are necessary to draw firmer conclusions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (H16) ◽  
pp. 286-287
Author(s):  
Sarah L. Martell

AbstractI discuss a search for red giant stars in the Galactic halo with light-element abundances similar to second-generation globular cluster stars, and discuss the implications of such a population for globular cluster formation models and the balance between in situ star formation and accretion for the assembly of the Galactic halo.


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