The Andromeda Galaxy’s Last Major Merger: Constraints from the survey of Planetary Nebulae
: Bhattacharya, Souradeep; Arnaboldi, Magda; Gerhard, Ortwin; Caldwell, Nelson; Kobayashi, Chiaki; Hammer, Francois; Yang, Yanbin; Freeman, Kenneth C.; Hartke, Johanna; McConnachie, Alan
: Tabatabaei, Fatemeh; Barbuy, Beatriz; Ting, Yuan-Sen
: Symposium of the International Astronomical Union
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
: 2024
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
: Early Disk-Galaxy Formation from JWST to the Milky Way
: 18
: 123
: 126
: 1743-9213
: 1743-9221
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743921323000996
: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743921323000996
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) ∼ 2.5-4.5 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.
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SB is funded by the INSPIRE Faculty award (DST/INSPIRE/04/2020/002224), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India. SB acknowledges support from the IMPRS on Astrophysics at the LMU Munich during his PhD.