Bibcode
Fu, W.; Simon, Joshua D.; Bovy, Jo; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Beers, Timothy; Harding, Paul; Ivans, Inese I.; Lane, Richard; APOGEE-2
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #231, id.#257.12
Advertised on:
1
2018
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
The characterization of stellar streams in the Milky Way halo can
provide important observational constraints on the ΛCDM
cosmological model, which posits that galaxies form via the accretion of
smaller satellites. One such stream, the 300 km/s stellar stream near
the dwarf galaxy Segue 1 (300S), was detected in narrow-field
spectroscopic surveys, but its photometric counterpart has not been
identified. In this study, we search for members of 300S in wide-field
survey data to map out the stream’s extent and further
characterize its progenitor. We add to the existing catalog of 300S
members by finding new members of 300S in SEGUE-1, SEGUE-2, and APOGEE-2
surveys, and confirm the kinematic association of 300S with an elongated
substructure found in both SDSS and PanSTARRS photometric data. The 300S
stars display a mean metallicity of [Fe/H] = ‑1.42 ± 0.26,
and have chemical abundance patterns similar to that of Local Group
dwarf galaxies, as well as that of the Milky Way halo. Using the
open-source code galpy to model a preliminary orbit of the stream, we
suggest that the progenitor of 300S experienced one major tidal
disruption event on its most recent pericentric passing. We conclude
that the progenitor of the stream is a dwarf galaxy that is probably
similar to the satellites that were accreted to build the present-day
Milky Way halo.