Bibcode
del Pino, A.; Aparicio, A.; Hidalgo, S. L.; Łokas, E. L.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 465, Issue 3, p.3708-3723
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3
2017
Citations
23
Refereed citations
22
Description
We present a novel analysis of the internal kinematics of the Fornax
dwarf spheroidal galaxy. Our results are based on the largest sample of
spectroscopic data for Fornax stars presently available (>2500
stars), for which we have chemical and kinematic information. We
introduce new software, BEACON, designed to detect chemo-kinematic
patterns among stars of different stellar populations using their
metallicity and velocity along the line of sight. Applying BEACON to
Fornax, we have detected non-negligible rotation signals around main
optical axes of the galaxy, characteristic for a triaxial system
partially supported by rotation. The dominant rotation pattern is
relatively strong (˜12 km s-1), but the galaxy also
shows additional weaker albeit complex rotation patterns. Using the
information available from the star formation history of Fornax, we have
also derived the average age of the different chemo-kinematic components
found by BEACON, which has allowed us to obtain its kinematic history.
Our results point to a possible major merger suffered by Fornax at
redshift z ˜ 1, in agreement with the previous works.
Related projects
Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies
The general aim of the project is to research the structure, evolutionary history and formation of galaxies through the study of their resolved stellar populations, both from photometry and spectroscopy. The group research concentrates in the most nearby objects, namely the Local Group galaxies including the Milky Way and M33 under the hypothesis
Martín
López Corredoira