Stellar Chemical Signatures and Hierarchical Galaxy Formation

To compare the chemistries of stars in the Milky Way dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellite galaxies with stars in the Galaxy, we have compiled a large sample of Galactic stellar abundances from the literature. When kinematic information is available, we have assigned the stars to standard Galactic compo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astronomical journal 2004-09, Vol.128 (3), p.1177-1195
Main Authors: Venn, Kim A, Irwin, Mike, Shetrone, Matthew D, Tout, Christopher A, Hill, Vanessa, Tolstoy, Eline
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrophysics
Physics
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Summary:To compare the chemistries of stars in the Milky Way dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellite galaxies with stars in the Galaxy, we have compiled a large sample of Galactic stellar abundances from the literature. When kinematic information is available, we have assigned the stars to standard Galactic components through Bayesian classification based on Gaussian velocity ellipsoids. As found in previous studies, the [alpha/Fe] ratios of most stars in the dSph galaxies are generally lower than similar metallicity Galactic stars in this extended sample. Our kinematically selected stars confirm this for the Galactic halo, thin-disk, and thick-disk components. There is marginal overlap in the low [alpha/Fe] ratios between dSph stars and Galactic halo stars on extreme retrograde orbits (V
ISSN:1538-3881
0004-6256
1538-3881
DOI:10.1086/422734