In:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, American Astronomical Society, Vol. 936, No. 1 ( 2022-09-01), p. L2-
Abstract:
In the first billion years after its formation, the Galaxy underwent several mergers with dwarf satellites of various masses. The debris of Gaia-Sausage/Enceladus (GSE), the galaxy responsible for the last significant merger of the Milky Way, dominates the inner halo and has been suggested to be the progenitor of both the Hercules-Aquila Cloud (HAC) and Virgo Overdensity (VOD). We combine SEGUE, APOGEE, Gaia, and StarHorse distances to characterize the chemodynamical properties and verify the link between HAC, VOD, and GSE. We find that the orbital eccentricity distributions of the stellar overdensities and GSE are comparable. We also find that they have similar, strongly peaked, metallicity distribution functions, reinforcing the hypothesis of common origin. Furthermore, we show that HAC and VOD are indistinguishable from the prototypical GSE population within all chemical-abundance spaces analyzed. All these evidences combined provide a clear demonstration that the GSE merger is the main progenitor of the stellar populations found within these halo overdensities.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
2041-8205
,
2041-8213
DOI:
10.3847/2041-8213/ac88d6
Language:
Unknown
Publisher:
American Astronomical Society
Publication Date:
2022
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2207648-7
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2006858-X