O2 Muu julkaisu

The Andromeda Galaxy's Last Major Merger: Constraints from the survey of Planetary Nebulae




TekijätBhattacharya Souradeep, Arnaboldi Magda, Gerhard Ortwin, Caldwell Nelson, Kobayashi Chiaki, Hammer Francois, Yang Yanbin, Freeman Kenneth C., Hartke Johanna, McConnachie Alan

Julkaisuvuosi2023

JournalarXiv.org

Lehden akronyymiarXiv

Verkko-osoitehttps://arxiv.org/abs/2305.02761

Preprintin osoitehttps://arxiv.org/abs/2305.02761


Tiivistelmä

The Andromeda galaxy (M 31) has experienced a tumultuous merger history as evidenced by the many substructures present in its inner halo. We use planetary nebulae (PNe) as chemodynamic tracers to shed light on the recent merger history of M 31. We identify the older dynamically hotter thicker disc in M 31 and a distinct younger dynamically colder thin disc. The two discs are also chemically distinct with the PN chemodynamics implying their formation in a `wet' major merger (mass ratio ~ 1:5) ~2.5-4 Gyr ago. From comparison of PN line-of-sight velocities in the inner halo substructures with predictions of a major-merger model in M 31, we find that the same merger event that formed the M 31 thick and thin disc is also responsible for forming these substructures. We thereby obtain constraints on the recent formation history of M 31 and the properties of its cannibalized satellite.



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 16:25