Bibcode
Piatti, A. E.; del Pino, A.; Aparicio, A.; Hidalgo, S. L.
Referencia bibliográfica
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 443, Issue 2, p.1748-1753
Fecha de publicación:
9
2014
Número de citas
8
Número de citas referidas
8
Descripción
We produce a comprehensive field star age-metallicity relationship (AMR)
from the earliest epoch until ˜1 Gyr ago for three fields in the
Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy by using VI photometric data obtained
with FORS1 at the VLT. We find that the innermost one does not contain
dominant very old stars (age > 12 Gyr), whereas the relatively outer
field does not account for representative star field populations younger
than ˜3 Gyr. When focusing on the most prominent stellar
populations, we find that the derived AMRs are engraved by the evidence
of an outside-in star formation process. The studied fields show bimodal
metallicity distributions peaked at [Fe/H] = (-0.95 ± 0.15) dex
and (-1.15 or -1.25 ± 0.05) dex, respectively, but only during
the first half of the entire galaxy lifetime. Furthermore, the more
metal-rich population appears to be more numerous in the outer fields,
while in the innermost Fornax field the contribution of both metallicity
populations seems to be similar. We also find that the metallicity
spread ˜6 Gyr ago is remarkable large, while the intrinsic
metallicity dispersion at ˜1-2 Gyr results smaller than that for
the relatively older generations of stars. We interpret these outcomes
as a result of a possible merger of two galaxies that would have
triggered a star formation bursting process that peaked between ˜6
and 9 Gyr ago, depending on the position of the field in the galaxy.
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