arXiv subjects

E. Starkenburg

Publications and source records attributed to E. Starkenburg.

34 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Galactic Archeology with 4MOST

4MOST is a new wide-field, high-multiplex spectroscopic survey facility for the VISTA telescope of ESO. Starting in 2022, 4MOST will deploy more than 2400 fibres in a 4.1 square degree field-of-view using a positioner based on the tilting spine principle. In this ontribution we give an outline of the major science goals we wish to achieve with 4MOST in the area of Galactic Archeology. The 4MOST Galactic Archeology surveys have been designed to address long-standing and far-reaching problems in Galactic science. They are focused on our major themes: 1) Near-field cosmology tests, 2) Chemo-dynamical characterisation of the major Milky Way stellar components, 3) The Galactic Halo and beyond, and 4) Discovery and characterisation of extremely metal-poor stars. In addition to a top-level description of the Galactic surveys we provide information about how the community will be able to join 4MOST via a call for Public Spectroscopic Surveys that ESO will launch.

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arXiv2017

The Pristine survey III: Spectroscopic confirmation of an efficient search for extremely metal-poor stars

The Pristine survey is a narrow-band, photometric survey focused around the wavelength region of the Ca II H & K absorption lines, designed to efficiently search for extremely metal-poor stars. In this work, we use the first results of a medium-resolution spectroscopic follow-up to refine the selection criteria for finding extremely metal-poor stars ($\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -3.0$) in the Pristine survey. We consider methods by which stars can be selected from available broad-band and infrared photometry plus the additional Pristine narrow-band photometry. The spectroscopic sample presented in this paper consists of 205 stars in the magnitude range $14 < V < 18$. Applying the photometric selection criteria cuts the sample down to 149 stars, and from these we report a success rate of 70% for finding stars with $\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -2.5$ and 22% for finding stars with $\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -3.0$. These statistics compare favourably with other surveys that search for extremely metal-poor stars, namely an improvement by a factor of $\sim 4-5$ for recovering stars with $\textrm{[Fe/H]} \leq -3.0$. In addition, Pristine covers a fainter magnitude range than its predecessors, and can thus probe deeper into the Galactic halo.

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arXiv2017

The Pristine survey II: a sample of bright stars observed with FEROS

Extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars are old objects formed in the first Gyr of the Universe. They are rare and, to select them, the most successful strategy has been to build on large and low-resolution spectroscopic surveys. The combination of narrow- and broad band photometry provides a powerful and cheaper alternative to select metal-poor stars. The on-going Pristine Survey is adopting this strategy, conducting photometry with the CFHT MegaCam wide field imager and a narrow-band filter centred at 395.2 nm on the CaII-H and -K lines. In this paper we present the results of the spectroscopic follow-up conducted on a sample of 26 stars at the bright end of the magnitude range of the Survey (g<=15), using FEROS at the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope. From our chemical investigation on the sample, we conclude that this magnitude range is too bright to use the SDSS gri bands, which are typically saturated. Instead the Pristine photometry can be usefully combined with the APASS gri photometry to provide reliable metallicity estimates.

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arXiv2017

An artificial neural network to discover Hypervelocity stars: Candidates in Gaia DR1/TGAS

The paucity of hypervelocity stars (HVSs) known to date has severely hampered their potential to investigate the stellar population of the Galactic Centre and the Galactic Potential. The first Gaia data release gives an opportunity to increase the current sample. The challenge is the disparity between the expected number of hypervelocity stars and that of bound background stars. We have applied a novel data mining algorithm based on machine learning techniques, an artificial neural network, to the Tycho-Gaia astrometric solution (TGAS) catalogue. With no pre-selection of data, we could exclude immediately $\sim 99 \%$ of the stars in the catalogue and find 80 candidates with more than $90\%$ predicted probability to be HVSs, based only on their position, proper motions, and parallax. We have cross-checked our findings with other spectroscopic surveys, determining radial velocities for 30 and spectroscopic distances for 5 candidates. In addition, follow-up observations have been carried out at the Isaac Newton Telescope for 22 stars, for which we obtained radial velocities and distance estimates. We discover 14 stars with a total velocity in the Galactic rest frame > 400 km/s, and 5 of these have a probability $>50\%$ of being unbound from the Milky Way. Tracing back their orbits in different Galactic potential models we find one possible unbound HVS with velocity $\sim$ 520 km/s, 5 bound HVSs, and, notably, 5 runaway stars with median velocity between 400 and 780 km/s. At the moment, uncertainties in the distance estimates and ages are too large to confirm the nature of our candidates by narrowing down their ejection location, and we wait for future Gaia releases to validate the quality of our sample. This test successfully demonstrates the feasibility of our new data mining routine.

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arXiv2016

Gemini/GRACES Spectroscopy of Stars in Triangulum II

The chemical abundance ratios and radial velocities for two stars in the recently discovered Triangulum II faint dwarf galaxy have been determined from high resolution, medium signal-to-noise ratio spectra from the Gemini-GRACES facility. These stars have stellar parameters and metallicities similar to those derived from their photometry and medium-resolution Ca II triplet spectra, and supports that Triangulum II has a metallicity spread consistent with chemical evolution in a dwarf galaxy. The elemental abundances show that both stars have typical calcium abundances and barium upper limits for their metallicities, but low magnesium and sodium. This chemical composition resembles some stars in dwarf galaxies, attributed to inhomogeneous mixing in a low star formation environment, and/or yields from only a few supernova events. One of our targets (Star40) has an enhancement in potassium, and resembles some stars in the unusual outer halo star cluster, NGC 2419. Our other target (Star46) appears to be a binary based on a change in its radial velocity (Delta v(rad) = 24.5 +/- 2.1 km/s). This is consistent with variations found in binary stars in other dwarf galaxies. While this serves as a reminder of the high binary fraction in these ultra faint dwarf galaxies, this particular object has had little impact on the previous determination of the velocity dispersion in Triangulum II.

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arXiv2016

The low mass end of the neutral gas mass and velocity width functions of galaxies in $Λ$CDM

We use the high-resolution Aquarius cosmological dark matter simulations coupled to the semi-analytic model by Starkenburg et al. (2013) to study the HI content and velocity width properties of field galaxies at the low mass end in the context of $Λ$CDM. We compare our predictions to the observed ALFALFA survey HI mass and velocity width functions, and find very good agreement without fine-tuning, when considering central galaxies. Furthermore, the properties of the dark matter halos hosting galaxies, characterised by their peak velocity and circular velocity at 2 radial disk scalelengths overlap perfectly with the inferred values from observations. This suggests that our galaxies are placed in the right dark matter halos, and consequently at face value, we do not find any discrepancy with the predictions from the $Λ$CDM model. Our analysis indicates that previous tensions, apparent when using abundance matching models, arise because this technique cannot be straightforwardly applied for objects with masses $M_{vir} < 10^{10} M_{\odot}$.

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arXiv2016

The early days of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy

We present the high resolution spectroscopic study of five -3.9<=[Fe/H]<=-2.5 stars in the Local Group dwarf spheroidal, Sculptor, thereby doubling the number of stars with comparable observations in this metallicity range. We carry out a detailed analysis of the chemical abundances of alpha, iron peak, light and heavy elements, and draw comparisons with the Milky Way halo and the ultra faint dwarf stellar populations. We show that the bulk of the Sculptor metal-poor stars follows the same trends in abundance ratios versus metallicity as the Milky Way stars. This suggests similar early conditions of star formation and a high degree of homogeneity of the interstellar medium. We find an outlier to this main regime, which seems to miss the products of the most massive of the TypeII supernovae. In addition to its value to help refining galaxy formation models, this star provides clues to the production of cobalt and zinc. Two of our sample stars have low odd-to-even barium isotope abundance ratios, suggestive of a fair proportion of s-process; we discuss the implication for the nucleosynthetic origin of the neutron capture elements.

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arXiv2015

Carbon and nitrogen abundances of individual stars in the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy

We present [C/Fe] and [N/Fe] abundance ratios and CH(λ4300) and S(λ3883) index measurements for 94 red giant branch (RGB) stars in the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy from VLT/VIMOS MOS observations at a resolving power R= 1150 at 4020 Å. This is the first time that [N/Fe] abundances are derived for a large number of stars in a dwarf spheroidal. We found a trend for the [C/Fe] abundance to decrease with increasing luminosity on the RGB across the whole metallicity range, a phenomenon observed in both field and globular cluster giants, which can be interpreted in the framework of evolutionary mixing of partially processed CNO material. Both our measurements of [C/Fe] and [N/Fe] are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions for stars at similar luminosity and metallicity. We detected a dispersion in the carbon abundance at a given [Fe/H], which cannot be ascribed to measurement uncertainties alone. We interpret this observational evidence as the result of the contribution of different nucleosynthesis sources over time to a not well-mixed interstellar medium. We report the discovery of two new carbon-enhanced, metal-poor stars. These are likely the result of pollution from material enriched by asymptotic giant branch stars, as indicated by our estimates of [Ba/Fe]> +1. We also attempted a search for dissolved globular clusters in the field of the galaxy by looking for the distinctive C-N pattern of second population globular clusters stars in a previously detected, very metal-poor, chemodynamical substructure. We do not detect chemical anomalies among this group of stars. However, small number statistics and limited spatial coverage do not allow us to exclude the hypotheses that this substructure forms part of a tidally shredded globular cluster.

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arXiv2014

VLT/FLAMES spectroscopy of red giant branch stars in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy

Fornax is one of the most massive dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the Local Group. The Fornax field star population is dominated by intermediate age stars but star formation was going on over almost its entire history. It has been proposed that Fornax experienced a minor merger event. Despite recent progress, only the high metallicity end of Fornax field stars ([Fe/H]>-1.2 dex) has been sampled in larger number via high resolution spectroscopy. We want to better understand the full chemical evolution of this galaxy by better sampling the whole metallicity range, including more metal poor stars. We use the VLT-FLAMES multi-fibre spectrograph in high-resolution mode to determine the abundances of several alpha, iron-peak and neutron-capture elements in a sample of 47 individual Red Giant Branch stars in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy. We combine these abundances with accurate age estimates derived from the age probability distribution from the colour-magnitude diagram of Fornax. Similar to other dwarf spheroidal galaxies, the old, metal-poor stars of Fornax are typically alpha-rich while the young metal-rich stars are alpha-poor. In the classical scenario of the time delay between SNe II and SNe Ia, we confirm that SNe Ia started to contribute to the chemical enrichment at [Fe/H] between -2.0 and -1.8 dex. We find that the onset of SNe Ia took place between 12-10 Gyrs ago. The high values of [Ba/Fe], [La/Fe] reflect the influence of SNe Ia and AGB stars in the abundance pattern of the younger stellar population of Fornax. Our findings of low [alpha/Fe] and enhanced [Eu/Mg] are compatible with an initial mass function that lacks the most massive stars and with star formation that kept going on throughout the whole history of Fornax. We find that massive stars kept enriching the interstellar medium in alpha-elements, although they were not the main contributor to the iron enrichment.

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arXiv2013

Through thick and thin: Structure of the Galactic thick disc from extragalactic surveys

We aim to understand the accretion history of the Milky Way by exploring the vertical and radial properties of the Galactic thick disc. We study the chemical and kinematic properties of roughly a thousand spectra of faint magnitude foreground Galactic stars observed serendipitously during extra-galactic surveys in four lines-of-sight: three in the southern Galactic hemisphere (surveys of the Carina, Fornax and Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxies) and one in the northern Galactic hemisphere (a survey of the Sextans dwarf spheroidal galaxy). The foreground stars span distances up to 3kpc from the Galactic plane and Galactocentric radii up to 11kpc. Only three lines-of-sight have a sufficient number of foreground stars for a robust analysis. Towards Sextans in the Northern Galactic hemisphere and Sculptor in the South, we measure a consistent decrease in mean metallicity with height from the Galactic plane, suggesting a chemically symmetric thick disc. This decrease can either be due to an intrinsic thick disc metallicity gradient, or simply due to a change in the thin disc/thick disc population ratio and no intrinsic metallicity gradients for the thick disc. We favour the latter explanation. In contrast, we find evidence of an unpredicted metal-poor population in the direction of Carina. This population was earlier detected by Wyse et al. (2006), but our more detailed analysis provides robust estimates of its location (|Z|<1kpc), metallicity (-2<[M/H]<-1 dex) and azimuthal orbital velocity (V_phi ~120 km/s). Given the chemo-dynamical properties of the over-density towards the Carina line-of-sight, we suggest that it represents the metal-poor tail of the canonical thick disc. In spite of the small number of stars available, we suggest that this metal-weak thick disc follows the often suggested thick disc velocity-metallicity correlation of dV_phi/d[M/H]~40-50km/s/dex.

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arXiv2012

The Star Formation & Chemical Evolution History of the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

We present deep photometry in the B,V and I filters from CTIO/MOSAIC for about 270.000 stars in the Fornax dwarf Spheroidal galaxy, out to a radius of r_ell\sim0.8 degrees. By combining the accurately calibrated photometry with the spectroscopic metallicity distributions of individual Red Giant Branch stars we obtain the detailed star formation and chemical evolution history of Fornax. Fornax is dominated by intermediate age (1-10 Gyr) stellar populations, but also includes ancient (10-14 Gyr), and young (<1 Gyr) stars. We show that Fornax displays a radial age gradient, with younger, more metal-rich populations dominating the central region. This confirms results from previous works. Within an elliptical radius of 0.8 degrees, or 1.9 kpc from the centre, a total mass in stars of 4.3x10^7 Msun was formed, from the earliest times until 250 Myr ago. Using the detailed star formation history, age estimates are determined for individual stars on the upper RGB, for which spectroscopic abundances are available, giving an age-metallicity relation of the Fornax dSph from individual stars. This shows that the average metallicity of Fornax went up rapidly from [Fe/H]<-2.5 dex to [Fe/H]=-1.5 dex between 8-12 Gyr ago, after which a more gradual enrichment resulted in a narrow, well-defined sequence which reaches [Fe/H]\sim-0.8 dex, \sim3 Gyr ago. These ages also allow us to measure the build-up of chemical elements as a function of time, and thus determine detailed timescales for the evolution of individual chemical elements. A rapid decrease in [Mg/Fe] is seen for the stars with [Fe/H]>-1.5 dex, with a clear trend in age.

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arXiv2012

Dark satellites and the morphology of dwarf galaxies

One of the strongest predictions of the LambdaCDM cosmological model is the presence of dark satellites orbiting all types of galaxies. We focus here on the dynamical effects of such satellites on disky dwarf galaxies, and demonstrate that these encounters can be dramatic. Although mergers with M_sat > M_d are not very common, because of the lower baryonic content they occur much more frequently on the dwarf scale than for L_*-galaxies. As an example, we present a numerical simulation of a 20% (virial) mass ratio merger between a dark satellite and a disky dwarf (akin to the Fornax dwarf galaxy in luminosity) that shows that the merger remnant has a spheroidal morphology. We conclude that perturbations by dark satellites provide a plausible path for the formation of dSph systems and also could trigger starbursts in gas rich dwarf galaxies. Therefore the transition from disky to the often amorphous, irregular, or spheroidal morphologies of dwarfs could be a natural consequence of the dynamical heating of hitherto unobservable dark satellites.

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arXiv2012

The Star Formation & Chemical Evolution History of the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy

We have combined deep photometry in the B,V and I bands from CTIO/MOSAIC of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy, going down to the oldest Main Sequence Turn-Offs, with spectroscopic metallicity distributions of Red Giant Branch stars. This allows us to obtain the most detailed and complete Star Formation History to date, as well as an accurate timescale for chemical enrichment. The Star Formation History shows that Sculptor is dominated by old ($>$10 Gyr), metal-poor stars, but that younger, more metal-rich populations are also present. Using Star Formation Histories determined at different radii from the centre we show that Sculptor formed stars with an increasing central concentration with time. The old, metal-poor populations are present at all radii, while more metal-rich, younger stars are more centrally concentrated. We find that within an elliptical radius of 1 degree, or 1.5 kpc from the centre, a total mass in stars of 7.8$\times10^{6}$ M$_{\odot}$ was formed, between 14 and 7 Gyr ago, with a peak at 13$-$14 Gyr ago. We use the detailed Star Formation History to determine age estimates for individual Red Giant Branch stars with high resolution spectroscopic abundances. Thus, for the first time, we can directly determine detailed timescales for the evolution of individual chemical elements. We find that the trends in alpha-elements match what is expected from an extended, relatively uninterrupted period of star formation continuing for 6$-$7 Gyr. The knee in the alpha-element distribution occurs at an age of 10.9$\pm$1Gyr, suggesting that SNe Ia enrichment began $\approx2\pm$1Gyr after the start of star formation in Sculptor.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

VLT/FLAMES spectroscopy of Red Giant Branch stars in the Carina dwarf spheroidal galaxy

The ages of individual Red Giant Branch stars (RGB) can range from 1 Gyr old to the age of the Universe, and it is believed that the abundances of most chemical elements in their photospheres remain unchanged with time (those that are not affected by the 1st dredge-up). This means that they trace the ISM in the galaxy at the time the star formed, and hence the chemical enrichment history of the galaxy. CMD analysis has shown the Carina dwarf spheroidal (dSph) to have had an unusually episodic star formation history (SFH) which is expected to be reflected in the abundances of different chemical elements. We use the VLT-FLAMES spectrograph in HR mode (R~20000) to measure the abundances of several chemical elements in a sample of 35 RGB stars in Carina. We also combine these abundances with photometry to derive age estimates for these stars. This allows us to determine which of two distinct star formation (SF) episodes the stars in our sample belong to, and thus to define the relationship between SF and chemical enrichment during these two episodes. As is expected from the SFH, Carina contains two distinct populations of RGB stars: one old (>10 Gyr), which we have found to be metal-poor ([Fe/H]<-1.5), and alpha-rich ([Mg/Fe]>0.0); the other intermediate age (~2-6 Gyr), which we have found to have a metallicity range (-1.8<[Fe/H]<-1.2) with a large spread in [alpha/Fe] abundance, going from extremely low values ([Mg/Fe]<-0.3) to the same mean values as the older population (<[Mg/Fe]>~0.3). We show that the chemical enrichment history of the Carina dSph was different for each SF episode. The earliest was short (~2-3 Gyr) and resulted in the rapid chemical enrichment of the whole galaxy to [Fe/H] ~ -1.5 with both SNe II and SNe Ia contributions. The subsequent episode occured after a gap of ~3-4 Gyr and appears to have resulted in relatively little evolution in either [Fe/H] or [alpha/Fe].

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arXiv2010

Extremely metal-poor stars in classical dwarf spheroidal galaxies: Fornax, Sculptor and Sextans

We present the results of a dedicated search for extremely metal-poor stars in the Fornax, Sculptor and Sextans dSphs. Five stars were selected from two earlier VLT/Giraffe and HET/HRS surveys and subsequently followed up at high spectroscopic resolution with VLT/UVES. All of them turned out to have [Fe/H] <= -3 and three stars are below [Fe/H] -3.5. This constitutes the first evidence that the classical dSphs Fornax and Sextans join Sculptor in containing extremely metal-poor stars and suggests that all of the classical dSphs contain extremely metal-poor stars. One giant in Sculptor at [Fe/H]=-3.96 +- 0.10 is the most metal-poor star ever observed in an external galaxy. We carried out a detailed analysis of the chemical abundances of the alpha, iron peak, and the heavy elements, and we performed a comparison with the Milky Way halo and the ultra faint dwarf stellar populations. Carbon, barium and strontium show distinct features characterized by the early stages of galaxy formation and can constrain the origin of their nucleosynthesis.

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arXiv2008

On the genealogy of the Orphan Stream

We use N-body simulations to explore the origin and a plausible orbit for the Orphan Stream, one of the faintest substructures discovered so far in the outer halo of our Galaxy. We are able to reproduce its position, velocity and distance measurements by appealing to a single wrap of a double-component satellite galaxy. We find that the progenitor of the Orphan Stream could have been an object similar to today's Milky Way dwarfs, such as Carina, Draco, Leo II or Sculptor; and unlikely to be connected to Complex A or Ursa Major II. Our models suggest that such progenitors, if accreted on orbits with apocenters smaller than ~35 kpc, are likely to give rise to very low surface brightness streams, which may be hiding in the outer halo and remain largely undetected with current techniques. The systematic discovery of these ghostly substructures may well require wide field spectroscopic surveys of the Milky Way's outer stellar halo.

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