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Alis J. Deason

Publications and source records attributed to Alis J. Deason.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Constraining the shape of dark matter haloes with globular clusters

We explore how diffuse stellar light and globular clusters (GCs) can be used to trace the matter distribution of their host halo using an observational methodology. For this, we use 117 simulated dark matter (DM) haloes from the $(34.4~\rm cMpc)^3$ periodic volume of the E-MOSAICS project. For each halo, we compare the stellar surface brightness and GC projected number density maps to the surface densities of DM and total mass. We find that the dominant structures identified in the stellar light and in the GCs correspond closely with those from the DM and total mass. Our method is unaffected by the presence of satellites and its precision improves with fainter GC samples. We recover tight relations between the profiles of stellar surface brightness and GC number density to those of the DM, suggesting that the profile of DM can be accurately recovered from the stars and GCs ($σ\leq0.5~$dex). We quantify the projected morphology of DM, stars and GCs, and find that the stars and GCs are more flattened than the DM. Additionally, the semi-major axes of the distribution of stars and GCs are typically misaligned by $\sim 10~$degrees from that of DM. We demonstrate that deep imaging of diffuse stellar light and GCs can place constraints on the shape, profile and orientation of their host halo. These results extend down to haloes with central galaxies $M_{\star}\geq10^{10}~M_{\odot}$, and the analysis will be applicable to future data from the Euclid, Roman and the Rubin observatories.

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Fast, Slow, Early, Late: Quenching Massive Galaxies at z~0.8

We investigate the stellar populations for a sample of 161 massive, mainly quiescent galaxies at $\langle z_{\rm obs} \rangle=0.8$ with deep Keck/DEIMOS rest-frame optical spectroscopy (HALO7D survey). With the fully Bayesian framework Prospector, we simultaneously fit the spectroscopic and photometric data with an advanced physical model (including non-parametric star-formation histories, emission lines, variable dust attenuation law, and dust and AGN emission) together with an uncertainty and outlier model. We show that both spectroscopy and photometry are needed to break the dust-age-metallicity degeneracy. We find a large diversity of star-formation histories: although the most massive ($M_{\star}>2\times10^{11}~M_{\odot}$) galaxies formed the earliest (formation redshift of $z_{\rm f}\approx5-10$ with a short star-formation timescale of $τ_{\rm SF}\lesssim1~\mathrm{Gyr}$), lower-mass galaxies have a wide range of formation redshifts, leading to only a weak trend of $z_{\rm f}$ with $M_{\star}$. Interestingly, several low-mass galaxies with have formation redshifts of $z_{\rm f}\approx5-8$. Star-forming galaxies evolve about the star-forming main sequence, crossing the ridgeline several times in their past. Quiescent galaxies show a wide range and continuous distribution of quenching timescales ($τ_{\rm quench}\approx0-5~\mathrm{Gyr}$) with a median of $\langleτ_{\rm quench}\rangle=1.0_{-0.9}^{+0.8}~\mathrm{Gyr}$ and of quenching epochs of $z_{\rm quench}\approx0.8-5.0$ ($\langle z_{\rm quench}\rangle=1.3_{-0.4}^{+0.7}$). This large diversity of quenching timescales and epochs points toward a combination of internal and external quenching mechanisms. In our sample, rejuvenation and "late bloomers" are uncommon. In summary, our analysis supports the "grow & quench" framework and is consistent with a wide and continuously-populated diversity of quenching timescales.

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Globular clusters as tracers of the dark matter halo: insights from the E-MOSAICS simulations

Globular clusters (GCs) are bright objects that span a wide range of galactocentric distances, and are thus probes of the structure of dark matter (DM) haloes. In this work, we explore whether the projected radial profiles of GCs can be used to infer the structural properties of their host DM haloes. We use the simulated GC populations in a sample of 166 central galaxies from the $(34.4~\rm cMpc)^3$ periodic volume of the E-MOSAICS project. We find that more massive galaxies host stellar and GC populations with shallower density profiles that are more radially extended. In addition, the metal-poor GC subpopulations tend to have shallower and more extended profiles than the metal-rich subsamples, which we relate to the preferentially accreted origin of the metal-poor GCs. We find strong correlations between the slopes and effective radii of the radial profiles of the GC populations and the structural properties of the DM haloes, such as their power-law slopes, scale radii, and concentration parameters. Accounting for a dependence on the galaxy stellar mass decreases the scatter of the two-dimensional relations. This suggests that the projected number counts of GCs, combined with their galaxy mass, trace the density profile of the DM halo of their host galaxy. When applied to extragalactic GC systems, we recover the scale radii and the extent of the DM haloes of a sample of ETGs with uncertainties smaller than $0.2~\rm dex$. Thus, extragalactic GC systems provide a novel avenue to explore the structure of DM haloes beyond the Local Group.

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The mass of the Milky Way out to 100 kpc using halo stars

We use a distribution function analysis to estimate the mass of the Milky Way out to 100 kpc using a large sample of halo stars. These stars are compiled from the literature, and the vast majority (~98%) have 6D phase-space information. We pay particular attention to systematic effects, such as the dynamical influence of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), and the effect of unrelaxed substructure. The LMC biases the (pre-LMC infall) halo mass estimates towards higher values, while realistic stellar halos from cosmological simulations tend to underestimate the true halo mass. After applying our method to the Milky Way data we find a mass within 100 kpc of M(< 100 kpc) = 6.07 +/- 0.29 (stat.) +/- 1.21 (sys.) x 10^11 M_Sun. For this estimate, we have approximately corrected for the reflex motion induced by the LMC using the Erkal et al. model, which assumes a rigid potential for the LMC and MW. Furthermore, stars that likely belong to the Sagittarius stream are removed, and we include a 5% systematic bias, and a 20% systematic uncertainty based on our tests with cosmological simulations. Assuming the mass-concentration relation for Navarro-Frenk-White haloes, our mass estimate favours a total (pre-LMC infall) Milky Way mass of M_200c = 1.01 +/- 0.24 x 10^12 M_Sun, or (post-LMC infall) mass of M_200c = 1.16 +/- 0.24 x 10^12 M_Sun when a 1.5 x 10^11 M_Sun mass of a rigid LMC is included.

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The twisted dark matter halo of the Milky Way

We analyse systems analogous to the Milky Way (MW) in the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamics simulation in order to deduce the likely structure of the MW's dark matter halo. We identify MW-mass haloes in the simulation whose satellite galaxies have similar kinematics and spatial distribution to those of the bright satellites of the MW, specifically systems in which the majority of the satellites (8 out of 11) have nearly co-planar orbits that are also perpendicular to the central stellar disc. We find that the normal to the common orbital plane of the co-planar satellites is well aligned with the minor axis of the host dark matter halo, with a median misalignment angle of only $17.3^\circ$. Based on this result, we infer that the minor axis of the Galactic dark matter halo points towards $(l,b)=(182^\circ,-2^\circ)$, with an angular uncertainty at the 68 and 95 percentile confidence levels of 22$^\circ$ and 43$^\circ$ respectively. Thus, the inferred minor axis of the MW halo lies in the plane of the stellar disc. The halo, however, is not homologous and its flattening and orientation vary with radius. The inner parts of the halo are rounder than the outer parts and well-aligned with the stellar disc (that is the minor axis of the halo is perpendicular to the disc). Further out, the halo twists and the minor axis changes direction by $90^\circ$. This twist occurs over a very narrow radial range and reflects variations in the filamentary network along which mass was accreted into the MW.

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The survival of globular clusters in a cuspy Fornax

It has long been argued that the radial distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the Fornax dwarf galaxy requires its dark matter halo to have a core of size $\sim 1$ kpc. We revisit this argument by investigating analogues of Fornax formed in E-MOSAICS, a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation that self-consistently follows the formation and evolution of GCs in the EAGLE galaxy formation model. In EAGLE, Fornax-mass haloes are cuspy and well described by the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We post-process the E-MOSAICS to account for GC orbital decay by dynamical friction, which is not included in the original model. Dynamical friction causes 33 per cent of GCs with masses $M_{\rm GC}\geq4\times10^4 {~\rm M_\odot}$ to sink to the centre of their host where they are tidally disrupted. Fornax has a total of five GCs, an exceptionally large number compared to other galaxies of similar stellar mass. In the simulations, we find that only 3 per cent of the Fornax analogues have five or more GCs, while 30 per cent have only one and 35 per cent have none. We find that GC systems in satellites are more centrally concentrated than in field dwarfs, and that those formed in situ (45 per cent) are more concentrated than those that were accreted. The survival probability of a GC increases rapidly with the radial distance at which it formed ($r_{\rm init}$): it is 37 per cent for GCs with $r_{\rm init} \leq 1$ kpc and 92 per cent for GCs with $r_{\rm init} \geq 1$ kpc. The present-day radial distribution of GCs in E-MOSAICS turns out to be indistinguishable from that in Fornax, demonstrating that, contrary to claims in the literature, the presence of five GCs in the central kiloparsec of Fornax does not exclude a cuspy DM halo.

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Stellar splashback: the edge of the intracluster light

We examine the outskirts of galaxy clusters in the C-EAGLE simulations to quantify the `edges' of the stellar and dark matter distribution. The radius of the steepest slope in the dark matter, commonly used as a proxy for the splashback radius, is located at ~r_200m; the strength and location of this feature depends on the recent mass accretion rate, in good agreement with previous work. Interestingly, the stellar distribution (or intracluster light, ICL) also has a well-defined edge, which is directly related to the splashback radius of the halo. Thus, detecting the edge of the ICL can provide an independent measure of the physical boundary of the halo, and the recent mass accretion rate. We show that these caustics can also be seen in the projected density profiles, but care must be taken to account for the influence of substructures and other non-diffuse material, which can bias and/or weaken the signal of the steepest slope. This is particularly important for the stellar material, which has a higher fraction bound in subhaloes than the dark matter. Finally, we show that the `stellar splashback' feature is located beyond current observational constraints on the ICL, but these large projected distances (>> 1 Mpc) and low surface brightnesses (mu >> 32 mag/arcsec^2) can be reached with upcoming observational facilities such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and Euclid.

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Detection of the LMC-induced sloshing of the Galactic halo

A wealth of recent studies have shown that the LMC is likely massive, with a halo mass $>10^{11} M_\odot$. One consequence of having such a nearby and massive neighbour is that the inner Milky Way is expected to be accelerated with respect to our Galaxy's outskirts (beyond $\sim 30$ kpc). In this work we compile a sample of $\sim 500$ stars with radial velocities in the distant stellar halo, $r_{\rm GC}> 50$ kpc, to test this hypothesis. These stars span a large fraction of the sky and thus give a global view of the stellar halo. We find that stars in the Southern hemisphere are on average blueshifted, while stars in the North are redshifted, consistent with the expected, mostly downwards acceleration of the inner halo due to the LMC. We compare these results with simulations and find the signal is consistent with the infall of a $1.5\times10^{11} M_\odot$ LMC. We cross-match our stellar sample with \textit{Gaia} DR2 and find that the mean proper motions are not yet precise enough to discern the LMC's effect. Our results show that the outer Milky Way is significantly out of equilibrium and that the LMC has a substantial effect on our Galaxy.

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A tale of two populations: surviving and destroyed dwarf galaxies and the build up of the Milky Way's stellar halo

We use magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of Milky Way-mass haloes from the Auriga project to examine the properties of surviving and destroyed dwarf galaxies that are accreted by these haloes over cosmic time. We show that the combined luminosity function of surviving and destroyed dwarfs at infall is similar in the various Auriga haloes, and is dominated by the destroyed dwarfs. There is, however, a strong dependence on infall time: destroyed dwarfs have typically early infall times, $t_{infall}<6$ Gyr, whereas the majority of dwarfs accreted at $t_{infall}>10$ Gyr have survived to the present day. Because of their late infall the surviving satellites today had higher metallicites at infall than their destroyed counterparts of similar infall mass; the difference is even more pronounced for the present-day metallicites of satellites, many of which continue to form stars after infall. In agreement with previous work, we find that a small number of relatively massive destroyed dwarf galaxies dominate the mass of the stellar haloes. However, there is a significant radial dependence: while 90 per cent of the mass in the inner regions ($<\,20\,$kpc) is contributed, on average, by only 3 massive progenitors, the outer regions ($>\,100\,$kpc) typically have $\sim8$ main progenitors of relatively lower mass. Finally, we show that a few massive progenitors dominate the metallicity distribution of accreted stars, even at the metal poor end. Contrary to common assumptions in the literature, dwarf galaxies of mass $M_{*}<10^7 \, M_{\odot}$ make up less than 10 per cent of the accreted, metal poor stars ([Fe/H] $<\,-3$) in the inner $50\,$kpc.

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The origin of galactic metal-rich stellar halo components with highly eccentric orbits

Using the astrometry from the ESA's Gaia mission, previous works have shown that the Milky Way stellar halo is dominated by metal-rich stars on highly eccentric orbits. To shed light on the nature of this prominent halo component, we have analysed 28 Galaxy analogues in the Auriga suite of cosmological hydrodynamics zoom-in simulations. Some three quarters of the Auriga galaxies contain significant components with high radial velocity anisotropy, beta > 0.6. However, only in one third of the hosts do the high-beta stars contribute significantly to the accreted stellar halo overall, similar to what is observed in the Milky Way. For this particular subset we reveal the origin of the dominant stellar halo component with high metallicity, [Fe/H]~-1, and high orbital anisotropy, beta>0.8, by tracing their stars back to the epoch of accretion. It appears that, typically, these stars come from a single dwarf galaxy with a stellar mass of order of 10^9-10^10 Msol that merged around 6-10 Gyr ago, causing a sharp increase in the halo mass. Our study therefore establishes a firm link between the excess of radially anisotropic stellar debris in the Milky Way halo and an ancient head-on collision between the young Milky Way and a massive dwarf galaxy

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Sausage & Mash: The dual origin of the Galactic thick disc and halo from the gas-rich Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage merger

We analyse a set of cosmological magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of the formation of Milky Way-mass galaxies identified to have a prominent radially anisotropic stellar halo component similar to the so-called "Gaia Sausage" found in the Gaia data. We examine the effects of the progenitor of the Sausage (the Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage, GES) on the formation of major galactic components analogous to the Galactic thick disc and inner stellar halo. We find that the GES merger is likely to have been gas-rich and contribute 10-50$\%$ of gas to a merger-induced centrally concentrated starburst that results in the rapid formation of a compact, rotationally supported thick disc that occupies the typical chemical thick disc region of chemical abundance space. We find evidence that gas-rich mergers heated the proto-disc of the Galaxy, scattering stars onto less-circular orbits such that their rotation velocity and metallicity positively correlate, thus contributing an additional component that connects the Galactic thick disc to the inner stellar halo. We demonstrate that the level of kinematic heating of the proto-galaxy correlates with the kinematic state of the population before the merger, the progenitor mass and orbital eccentricity of the merger. Furthermore, we show that the mass and time of the merger can be accurately inferred from local stars on counter-rotating orbits.

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The Edge of the Galaxy

We use cosmological simulations of isolated Milky Way-mass galaxies, as well as Local Group analogues, to define the "edge" -- a caustic manifested in a drop in density or radial velocity -- of Galactic-sized haloes, both in dark matter and in stars. In the dark matter, we typically identify two caustics: the outermost caustic located at ~1.4r_200m corresponding to the "splashback" radius, and a second caustic located at ~0.6r_200m which likely corresponds to the edge of the virialized material which has completed at least two pericentric passages. The splashback radius is ill defined in Local Group type environments where the halos of the two galaxies overlap. However, the second caustic is less affected by the presence of a companion, and is a more useful definition for the boundary of the Milky Way halo. Curiously, the stellar distribution also has a clearly defined caustic, which, in most cases, coincides with the second caustic of the dark matter. This can be identified in both radial density and radial velocity profiles, and should be measurable in future observational programmes. Finally, we show that the second caustic can also be identified in the phase-space distribution of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. Using the current dwarf galaxy population, we predict the edge of the Milky Way halo to be 292 +/- 61 kpc.

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Quantifying the Stellar Halo's Response to the LMC's Infall with Spherical Harmonics

The vast majority of the mass in the Milky Way (MW) is in dark matter (DM); we therefore cannot directly observe the MW mass distribution, and have to use tracer populations in order to infer properties of the MW DM halo. However, MW halo tracers do not only feel the gravitational influence of the MW itself. Tracers can also be affected by MW satellites; Garavito-Camargo et al. (2019) (hereafter GC19) demonstrate that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) induces a density wake in the MW DM, resulting in large scale kinematic patterns in the MW stellar halo. In this work, we use spherical harmonic expansion (SHE) of the velocity fields of simulated stellar halos in an effort to disentangle perturbations on large scales (e.g., due to the LMC itself as well as the LMC-induced DM wake) and small scales (due to substructure). Using the GC19 simulations, we demonstrate how the different terms in the SHE of the stellar velocity field reflect the different wake components, and show that these signatures are a strong function of the LMC mass. An exploration of model halos built from accreted dwarfs Bullock & Johnston (2005) suggests that stellar debris from massive, recent accretion events can produce much more power in the velocity angular power spectra than the perturbation from the LMC-induced wake. We therefore consider two models for the Sagittarius (Sgr) stream -- the most recent, massive accretion event in the MW apart from the LMC -- and find that the angular power on large scales is generally dominated by the LMC-induced wake, even when Sgr is included. We conclude that SHE of the MW stellar halo velocity field may therefore be a useful tool in quantifying the response of the MW DM halo to the LMC's infall.

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How Unusual is the Milky Way's Assembly History?

In the $Λ$CDM model of structure formation galactic haloes build up by accretion of mass and mergers of smaller subunits. The most recent massive merger event experienced by the Milky Way (MW) halo was the accretion of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC; which has a stellar mass of $\sim \; 10^9M_\odot$). Recent analyses of galactic stellar data from the \textit{Gaia} satellite have uncovered an earlier massive accretion event, the Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage (GES), which merged with the MW around 10 Gyr ago. Here, we use the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamics simulation to study properties of simulated MW-mass haloes constrained to have accretion histories similar to that of the MW, specifically the recent accretion of an "LMC" galaxy and a "GES'' merger, with a quiescent period between the GES merger and the infall of the LMC (the "GES \& LMC" class). We find that $\sim 16$ per cent of MW-mass haloes have an LMC; $\sim 5$ per cent have a GES event and no further merger with an equally massive object since $z=1$; and only $0.65$ per cent belong to the LMC \& GES category. The progenitors of the MWs in this last category are much less massive than average at early times but eventually catch up with the mean. The LMC \& GES class of galaxies naturally end up in the "blue cloud" in the colour-magnitude diagram at $z=0$, tend to have a disc morphology and have a larger than average number of satellite galaxies.

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The Milky Way total mass profile as inferred from Gaia DR2

We determine the Milky Way (MW) mass profile inferred from fitting physically motivated models to the Gaia DR2 Galactic rotation curve and other data. Using various hydrodynamical simulations of MW-mass haloes, we show that the presence of baryons induces a contraction of the dark matter (DM) distribution in the inner regions, r<20 kpc. We provide an analytic expression that relates the baryonic distribution to the change in the DM halo profile. For our galaxy, the contraction increases the enclosed DM halo mass by factors of roughly 1.3, 2 and 4 at radial distances of 20, 8 and 1 kpc, respectively compared to an uncontracted halo. Ignoring this contraction results in systematic biases in the inferred halo mass and concentration. We provide a best-fitting contracted NFW halo model to the MW rotation curve that matches the data very well. The best-fit has a DM halo mass, $M_{200}^{\rm DM}=0.97_{-0.19}^{+0.24}\times10^{12} M_\odot$, and concentration before baryon contraction of $9.4_{-2.6}^{+1.9}$, which lie close to the median halo mass--concentration relation predicted in $Λ$CDM. The inferred total mass, $M_{200}^{\rm total}=1.08_{-0.14}^{+0.20} \times 10^{12} M_\odot$, is in good agreement with recent measurements. The model gives a MW stellar mass of $5.04_{-0.52}^{+0.43}\times10^{10} M_\odot$ and infers that the DM density at the Solar position is $ρ_{\odot}^{\rm DM}=8.8_{-0.5}^{+0.5}\times10^{-3} M_\odot \rm{pc}^{-3}\equiv0.33_{-0.02}^{+0.02}~\rm{GeV}~\rm{cm}^{-3}$. The rotation curve data can also be fitted with an uncontracted NFW halo model, but with very different DM and stellar parameters. The observations prefer the physically motivated contracted NFW halo, but the measurement uncertainties are too large to rule out the uncontracted NFW halo.

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The Halo's Ancient Metal-Rich Progenitor Revealed with BHB Stars

Using the data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Gaia satellite, we assemble a pure sample of $\sim$3000 Blue Horizontal Branch (BHB) stars with 7-D information, including positions, velocities and metallicities. We demonstrate that, as traced with BHBs, the Milky Way's stellar halo is largely unmixed and can not be well represented with a conventional Gaussian velocity distribution. A single-component model fails because the inner portions of the halo are swamped with metal-rich tidal debris from an ancient, head-on collision, known as the "Gaia Sausage". Motivated by the data, we build a flexible mixture model which allows us to track the evolution of the halo make-up across a wide range of radii. It is built from two components, one representing the radially anisotropic Sausage stars with their lobed velocity distribution, the other representing a more metal-poor and more isotropic component built up from minor mergers. We show that inside 25 kpc the "Sausage" contributes at least 50 % of the Galactic halo. The fraction of "Sausage" stars diminishes sharply beyond 30 kpc, which is the long-established break radius of the classical stellar halo.

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The orbital phase space of contracted dark matter halos

We study the orbital phase-space of dark matter (DM) halos in the AURIGA suite of cosmological hydrodynamics simulations of Milky Way analogues. We characterise halos by their spherical action distribution, a function of the specific angular momentum, and the radial action, of the DM particles. By comparing DM-only and hydrodynamical simulations of the same halos, we investigate the contraction of DM halos caused by the accumulation of baryons at the centre. We find a small systematic suppression of the radial action in the DM halos of the hydrodynamical simulations, suggesting that the commonly used adiabatic contraction approximation can result in an underestimate of the density by ~ 8%. We apply an iterative algorithm to contract the AURIGA DM halos given a baryon density profile and halo mass, recovering the true contracted DM profiles with an accuracy of ~15%, that reflects halo-to-halo variation. Using this algorithm, we infer the total mass profile of the Milky Way's contracted DM halo. We derive updated values for the key astrophysical inputs to DM direct detection experiments: the DM density and velocity distribution in the Solar neighbourhood.

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The Nature of Ionized Gas in the Milky Way Galactic Fountain

We address the spatial scale, ionization structure, mass and metal content of gas at the Milky Way disk-halo interface detected as absorption in the foreground of seven closely-spaced, high-latitude halo blue horizontal branch stars (BHBs) with heights z = 3 - 14 kpc. We detect transitions that trace multiple ionization states (e.g. CaII, FeII, SiIV, CIV) with column densities that remain constant with height from the disk, indicating that the gas most likely lies within z < 3.4 kpc. The intermediate ionization state gas traced by CIV and SiIV is strongly correlated over the full range of transverse separations probed by our sightlines, indicating large, coherent structures greater than 1 kpc in size. The low ionization state material traced by CaII and FeII does not exhibit a correlation with either N$_{\rm HI}$ or transverse separation, implying cloudlets or clumpiness on scales less than 10 pc. We find that the observed ratio log(N_SiIV/ N_CIV), with a median value of -0.69+/-0.04, is sensitive to the total carbon content of the ionized gas under the assumption of either photoionization or collisional ionization. The only self-consistent solution for photoionized gas requires that Si be depleted onto dust by 0.35 dex relative to the solar Si/C ratio, similar to the level of Si depletion in DLAs and in the Milky Way ISM. The allowed range of values for the areal mass infall rate of warm, ionized gas at the disk-halo interface is 0.0003 < dM_gas / dtdA [M_sun kpc^-2 yr^-] < 0.006. Our data support a physical scenario in which the Milky Way is fed by complex, multiphase processes at its disk-halo interface that involve kpc-scale ionized envelopes or streams containing pc-scale, cool clumps.

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