Bibcode
Schlaufman, Kevin C.; Rockosi, Constance M.; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Beers, Timothy C.; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brewington, Howard; Lee, Young Sun; Malanushenko, Viktor; Malanushenko, Elena; Oravetz, Dan; Pan, Kaike; Simmons, Audrey; Snedden, Stephanie; Yanny, Brian
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 703, Issue 2, pp. 2177-2204 (2009).
Advertised on:
10
2009
Journal
Citations
84
Refereed citations
79
Description
We identify 10—seven for the first time—elements of cold
halo substructure (ECHOS) in the volume within 17.5 kpc of the Sun in
the inner halo of the Milky Way. Our result is based on the observed
spatial and radial velocity distribution of metal-poor main-sequence
turnoff (MPMSTO) stars in 137 Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding
and Exploration lines of sight. We point out that the observed radial
velocity distribution is consistent with a smooth stellar component of
the Milky Way's inner halo overall, but disagrees significantly at the
radial velocities that correspond to our detections. We show that all of
our detections are statistically significant and that we expect no false
positives. These ECHOS represent the observable stellar debris of
ancient merger events in the stellar accretion history of the Milky Way,
and we use our detections and completeness estimates to infer a formal
upper limit of 0.34+0.02 -0.02 on the fraction of
the MPMSTO population in the inner halo that belong to ECHOS. Our
detections and completeness calculations also suggest that there is a
significant population of low fractional overdensity ECHOS in the inner
halo, and we predict that 1/3 of the inner halo (by volume) harbors
ECHOS with MPMSTO star number densities n ≈ 15 kpc-3. In
addition, we estimate that there are of order 103 ECHOS in
the entire inner halo. ECHOS are likely older than known surface
brightness substructure, so our detections provide us with a direct
measure of the accretion history of the Milky Way in a region and time
interval that has yet to be fully explored. In concert with previous
studies, our result suggests that the level of merger activity has been
roughly constant over the past few Gyr and that there has been no
accretion of single stellar systems more massive than a few percent of a
Milky Way mass in that interval.