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Johnston, KV, Bullock, JS, Sharma, S, Font, AS, Robertson, BE and Leitner, SN (2008) TRACING GALAXY FORMATION WITH STELLAR HALOS. II. RELATING SUBSTRUCTURE IN PHASE AND ABUNDANCE SPACE TO ACCRETION HISTORIES. Astrophysical Journal, 689 (2). pp. 936-957. ISSN 0004-637X
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Abstract
This paper explores the mapping between the observable properties of a stellar halo in phase- and abundance-space and the parent galaxy’s accretion history in terms of the characteristic epoch of accretion and mass and orbits of progenitor objects. The study utilizes a suite of eleven stellar halo models constructed within the context of a standard ΛCDM cosmology. The results demonstrate that coordinate-space studies are sensitive to the recent (0-8 Gyears ago) merger histories of galaxies (this timescale corresponds to the last few to tens of percent of mass accretion for a Milky-Way-type galaxy). Specifically, the frequency, sky coverage and fraction of stars in substructures in the stellar halo as a function of surface brightness are indicators of the importance of recent merging and of the luminosity function of infalling dwarfs. The morphology of features serves as a guide to the orbital distribution of those dwarfs. Constraints on the earlier merger history (> 8 Gyears ago) can be gleaned from the abundance patterns in halo stars: within our models, dramatic differences in the dominant epoch of accretion or luminosity function of progenitor objects leave clear signatures in the [α/Fe] and [Fe/H] distributions of the stellar halo — halos dominated by very early accretion have higher average [α/Fe], while those dominated by high luminosity satellites have higher [Fe/H]. This intuition can be applied to reconstruct much about the merger histories of nearby galaxies from current and future data sets.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | @2008. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences, 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics, 0306 Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural) |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics |
| Divisions: | Astrophysics Research Institute |
| Publisher: | American Astronomical Society; IOP Publishing |
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| Date Deposited: | 29 Apr 2021 10:27 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2021 05:32 |
| DOI or ID number: | 10.1086/592228 |
| URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/14886 |
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