Bibcode
Longeard, N.; Martin, Nicolas; Starkenburg, Else; Ibata, Rodrigo A.; Collins, Michelle L. M.; Geha, Marla; Laevens, Benjamin P. M.; Rich, R. Michael; Aguado, D. S.; Arentsen, Anke; Carlberg, Raymond G.; Côté, Patrick; Hill, Vanessa; Jablonka, Pascale; González Hernández, J. I.; Navarro, Julio F.; Sánchez-Janssen, Rubén; Tolstoy, Eline; Venn, Kim A.; Youakim, Kris
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 480, Issue 2, p.2609-2627
Advertised on:
10
2018
Citations
65
Refereed citations
60
Description
We present a detailed study of the faint Milky Way satellite Draco II
(Dra II) from deep CFHT/MegaCam broad-band g and i photometry and
narrow-band metallicity-sensitive CaHK observations, along with
follow-up Keck II/DEIMOS multi-object spectroscopy. Forward modelling of
the deep photometry allows us to refine the structural and photometric
properties of Dra II: the distribution of stars in colour-magnitude
space implies Dra II is old (13.5 ± 0.5 Gyr), very metal-poor,
very faint (L_V = 180 ^{+124}_{-72} { L_⊙}), and at a distance d =
21.5 ± 0.4 { kpc}. The narrow-band, metallicity-sensitive CaHK
Pristine photometry confirms this very low metallicity ([Fe/H] = -2.7
± 0.1 dex). Even though our study benefits from a doubling of the
spectroscopic sample size compared to previous investigations, the
velocity dispersion of the system is still only marginally resolved
(σ _{vr}< 5.9 { km s^{-1}} at the 95 per cent confidence level)
and confirms that Dra II is a dynamically cold stellar system with a
large recessional velocity (< vr> =
-342.5^{+1.1}_{-1.2}{ km s^{-1}}). We further show that the
spectroscopically confirmed members of Dra II have a mean proper motion
of (μ _α ^*,μ _δ)=(1.26 ± 0.27,0.94 ±
0.28) { mas/yr} in the Gaia DR2 data, which translates to an orbit with
a pericentre and an apocentre of 21.3 ^{+0.7}_{-1.0} and 153.8
^{+56.7}_{-34.7} { kpc}, respectively. Taken altogether, these
properties favour the scenario of Dra II being a potentially disrupting
dwarf galaxy. The low-significance extra-tidal features we map around
the satellite tentatively support this scenario.