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ABSTRACT The star formation histories (SFHs) of galactic stellar haloes offer crucial insights into the merger history of the galaxy and the effects of those mergers on their hosts. Such measurements have revealed that while the Milky Way’s most important merger was 8–10 Gyr ago, M31’s largest merger was more recent, within the last few Gyr. Unfortunately, the required halo SFH measurements are extremely observationally expensive outside of the Local Group. Here, we use asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars brighter than the tip of the red giant branch (RGB) to constrain stellar halo SFHs. Both stellar population models and archival data sets show that the AGB/RGB ratio constrains the time before which 90 per cent of the stars formed, t90. We find AGB stars in the haloes of three highly inclined roughly Milky Way-mass galaxies with resolved star measurements from the Hubble Space Telescope; this population is most prominent in the stellar haloes of NGC 253 and NGC 891, suggesting that their stellar haloes contain stars born at relatively late times, with inferred t90 ∼ 6 ± 1.5 Gyr. This ratio also varies from region to region, tending towards higher values along the major axis and in tidal streams or shells. By combining our measurements with previous constraints, we find a tentative anticorrelation between halo age and stellar halo mass, a trend that exists in models of galaxy formation but has never been elucidated before, i.e. the largest stellar haloes of Milky Way-mass galaxies were assembled more recently.
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A Timeline of the M81 Group: Properties of the Extended Structures of M82 and NGC 3077
Abstract Mergers of and interactions between galaxies imprint a wide diversity of morphological, dynamical, and chemical characteristics in stellar halos and tidal streams. Measuring these characteristics elucidates aspects of the progenitors of the galaxies we observe today. The M81 group is the perfect galaxy group to understand the past, present, and future of a group of galaxies in the process of merging. Here, we measure the end of star formation (t90) and metallicity ([M/H]) of the stellar halo of M82 and the eastern tidal stream of NGC 3077 to: (1) test the idea that M82 possesses a genuine stellar halo, formed before any interaction with M81; (2) determine if NGC 3077's tidal disruption is related to the star formation history in its tails; and (3) create a timeline of the assembly history of the central trio in the M81 group. We argue that M82 possesses a genuine, metal-poor ([M/H] ∼ −1.62 dex) stellar halo, formed from the merger of a small satellite galaxy roughly 6.6 Gyr ago. We also find that the stars present in NGC 3077's tails formed before tidal disruption with M81, and possess a roughly uniform metallicity as shown in S. Okamoto et al., implying that NGC 3077's progenitor had significant population gradients. Finally, we present a timeline of the central trio’s merger/interaction history.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2007065
- PAR ID:
- 10548286
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 974
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 189
- Size(s):
- Article No. 189
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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