arXiv subjects

James Binney

Publications and source records attributed to James Binney.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Modelling the Milky Way's globular cluster system

We construct a model for the Galactic globular cluster system based on a realistic gravitational potential and a distribution function (DF) analytic in the action integrals. The DF comprises disc and halo components whose functional forms resemble those recently used to describe the stellar discs and stellar halo. We determine the posterior distribution of our model parameters using a Bayesian approach. This gives us an understanding of how well the globular cluster data constrain our model. The favoured parameter values of the disc and halo DFs are similar to values previously obtained from fits to the stellar disc and halo, although the cluster halo system shows clearer rotation than does the stellar halo. Our model reproduces the generic features of the globular cluster system, namely the density profile, the mean rotation velocity. The fraction of disc clusters coincides with the observed fraction of metal-rich clusters. However, the data indicate either incompatibility between catalogued cluster distances and current estimates of distance to the Galactic Centre, or failure to identify clusters behind the bulge. As the data for our Galaxy's components increase in volume and precision over the next few years, it will be rewarding to revisit the present analysis.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

The angular momentum of cosmological coronae and the inside-out growth of spiral galaxies

Massive and diffuse haloes of hot gas (coronae) are important intermediaries between cosmology and galaxy evolution, storing mass and angular momentum acquired from the cosmic web until eventual accretion on to star-forming discs. We introduce a method to reconstruct the rotation of a galactic corona, based on its angular momentum distribution (AMD). This allows us to investigate in what conditions the angular momentum acquired from tidal torques can be transferred to star forming discs and explain observed galaxy-scale processes, such as inside-out growth and the build-up of abundance gradients. We find that a simple model of an isothermal corona with a temperature slightly smaller than virial and a cosmologically motivated AMD is in good agreement with galaxy evolution requirements, supporting hot-mode accretion as a viable driver for the evolution of spiral galaxies in a cosmological context. We predict moderately sub-centrifugal rotation close to the disc and slow rotation close to the virial radius. Motivated by the observation that the Milky Way has a relatively hot corona (T ~ 2 x 10^6 K), we also explore models with a temperature larger than virial. To be able to drive inside-out growth, these models must be significantly affected by feedback, either mechanical (ejection of low angular momentum material) or thermal (heating of the central regions). However, the agreement with galaxy evolution constraints becomes, in these cases, only marginal, suggesting that our first and simpler model may apply to a larger fraction of galaxy evolution history.

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arXiv2016

The Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE): Fifth Data Release

Data Release 5 (DR5) of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) is the fifth data release from a magnitude-limited (9< I < 12) survey of stars randomly selected in the southern hemisphere. The RAVE medium-resolution spectra ($R\sim7500$) covering the Ca-triplet region (8410-8795Å) span the complete time frame from the start of RAVE observations in 2003 to their completion in 2013. Radial velocities from 520,781 spectra of 457,588 unique stars are presented, of which 255,922 stellar observations have parallaxes and proper motions from the Tycho-Gaia astrometric solution (TGAS) in Gaia DR1. For our main DR5 catalog, stellar parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, and overall metallicity) are computed using the RAVE DR4 stellar pipeline, but calibrated using recent K2 Campaign 1 seismic gravities and Gaia benchmark stars, as well as results obtained from high-resolution studies. Also included are temperatures from the Infrared Flux Method, and we provide a catalogue of red giant stars in the dereddened color $(J-Ks)_0$ interval (0.50,0.85) for which the gravities were calibrated based only on seismology. Further data products for sub-samples of the RAVE stars include individual abundances for Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, Fe, and Ni, and distances found using isochrones. Each RAVE spectrum is complemented by an error spectrum, which has been used to determine uncertainties on the parameters. The data can be accessed via the RAVE Web site or the Vizier database.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

A centrally heated dark halo for our Galaxy

We construct a new family of models of our Galaxy in which dark matter and disc stars are both represented by distribution functions that are analytic functions of the action integrals of motion. The potential that is self-consistently generated by the dark matter, stars and gas is determined, and parameters in the distribution functions are adjusted until the model is compatible with observational constraints on the circular-speed curve, the vertical density profile of the stellar disc near the Sun, the kinematics of nearly 200 000 giant stars within 2 kpc of the Sun, and estimates of the optical depth to microlensing of bulge stars. We find that the data require a dark halo in which the phase-space density is approximately constant for actions |J| \lesssim 140 kpc km ^-1. In real space these haloes have core radii ~ 2 kpc.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Characterizing stellar halo populations II: The age gradient in blue horizontal-branch stars

The distribution of Milky Way halo blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars is examined using action-based extended distribution functions (EDFs) that describe the locations of stars in phase space, metallicity, and age. The parameters of the EDFs are fitted using stars observed in the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration-II (SEGUE-II) survey that trace the phase-space kinematics and chemistry out to ~70 kpc. A maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) estimate method and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method are applied, taking into account the selection function in positions, distance, and metallicity for the survey. The best-fit EDF declines with actions less steeply at actions characteristic of the inner halo than at the larger actions characteristic of the outer halo, and older ages are found at smaller actions than at larger actions. In real space, the radial density profile steepens smoothly from -2 at ~2 kpc to -4 in the outer halo, with an axis ratio ~0.7 throughout. There is no indication for rotation in the BHBs, although this is highly uncertain. A moderate level of radial anisotropy is detected, with $β_s$ varying from isotropic to between ~0.1 and ~0.3 in the outer halo depending on latitude. The BHB data are consistent with an age gradient of -0.03 Gyr kpc$^{-1}$, with some uncertainty in the distribution of the larger ages. These results are consistent with a scenario in which older, larger systems contribute to the inner halo, whilst the outer halo is primarily comprised of younger, smaller systems.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Managing resonant trapped orbits in our Galaxy

Galaxy modelling is greatly simplified by assuming the existence of a global system of angle-action coordinates. Unfortunately, global angle-action coordinates do not exist because some orbits become trapped by resonances, especially where the radial and vertical frequencies coincide. We show that in a realistic Galactic potential such trapping occurs only on thick-disc and halo orbits (speed relative to the guiding centre >~80 km/s). We explain how the Torus Mapper code (TM) behaves in regions of phase space in which orbits are resonantly trapped, and we extend TM so trapped orbits can be manipulated as easily as untrapped ones. The impact that the resonance has on the structure of velocity space depends on the weights assigned to trapped orbits. The impact is everywhere small if each trapped orbit is assigned the phase space density equal to the time average along the orbit of the DF for untrapped orbits. The impact could be significant with a different assignment of weights to trapped orbits.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Chemical separation of disc components using RAVE

We present evidence from the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) survey of chemically separated, kinematically distinct disc components in the solar neighbourhood. We apply probabilistic chemical selection criteria to separate our sample into $α$-low (`thin disc') and $α$-high (`thick disc') sequences. Using newly derived distances, which will be utilized in the upcoming RAVE DR5, we explore the kinematic trends as a function of metallicity for each of the disc components. For our $α$-low disc, we find a negative trend in the mean rotational velocity ($V_{\mathrmϕ}$) as a function of iron abundance ([Fe/H]). We measure a positive gradient $\partial V_{\mathrmϕ}$/$\partial$[Fe/H] for the $α$-high disc, consistent with results from high-resolution surveys. We also find differences between the $α$-low and $α$-high discs in all three components of velocity dispersion. We discuss the implications of an $α$-low, metal-rich population originating from the inner Galaxy, where the orbits of these stars have been significantly altered by radial mixing mechanisms in order to bring them into the solar neighbourhood. The probabilistic separation we propose can be extended to other data sets for which the accuracy in [$α$/Fe] is not sufficient to disentangle the chemical disc components a priori. For such datasets which will also have significant overlap with Gaia DR1, we can therefore make full use of the improved parallax and proper motion data as it becomes available to investigate kinematic trends in these chemical disc components.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Age velocity dispersion relations and heating histories in disc galaxies

We analyse the heating of stellar discs by non axisymmetric structures and giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in N-body simulations of growing disc galaxies. The analysis resolves long-standing discrepancies between models and data by demonstrating the importance of distinguishing between measured age-velocity dispersion relations (AVRs) and the heating histories of the stars that make up the AVR. We fit both AVRs and heating histories with formulae proportional to t^beta and determine the exponents beta_R and beta_z derived from in-plane and vertical AVRs and ~beta_R and ~beta_z from heating histories. Values of beta_z are in almost all simulations larger than values of ~beta_z, whereas values of beta_R are similar to or mildly larger than values of ~beta_R. Moreover, values of beta_z (~beta_z) are generally larger than values of beta_R (~beta_R). The dominant cause of these relations is the decline over the life of the disc in importance of GMCs as heating agents relative to spiral structure and the bar. We examine how age errors and biases in solar neighbourhood surveys influence the measured AVR: they tend to decrease beta values by smearing out ages and thus measured dispersions. We compare AVRs and velocity ellipsoid shapes sigma_z/sigma_R from simulations to Solar neighbourhood data. We conclude that for the expected disc mass and dark halo structure, combined GMC and spiral/bar heating can explain the AVR of the Galactic thin disc. Strong departures of the disc mass or the dark halo structure from expectation spoil fits to the data.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

The quiescent phase of galactic disc growth

We perform a series of controlled N-body simulations of growing disc galaxies within non-growing, live dark matter haloes of varying mass and concentration. Our initial conditions include either a low-mass disc or a compact bulge. New stellar particles are continuously added on near-circular orbits to the existing disc, so spiral structure is continuously excited. To study the effect of combined spiral and giant molecular cloud (GMC) heating on the discs we introduce massive, short-lived particles that sample a GMC mass function. An isothermal gas component is introduced for a subset of the models. We perform a resolution study and vary parameters governing the GMC population, the histories of star formation and radial scale growth. Models with GMCs and standard values for the disc mass and halo density provide the right level of self-gravity to explain the age velocity dispersion relation of the Solar neighbourhood (Snhd). GMC heating generates remarkably exponential vertical profiles with scaleheights that are radially constant and agree with observations of galactic thin discs. GMCs are also capable of significantly delaying bar formation. The amount of spiral induced radial migration agrees with what is required for the metallicity distribution of the Snhd. However, in our standard models the outward migrating populations are not hot enough vertically to create thick discs. Thick discs can form in models with high baryon fractions, but the corresponding bars are too long, the young stellar populations too hot and the discs flare considerably.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Characterising stellar halo populations I: An extended distribution function for halo K giants

We fit an Extended Distribution Function (EDF) to K giants in the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) survey. These stars are detected to radii ~80 kpc and span a wide range in [Fe/H]. Our EDF, which depends on [Fe/H] in addition to actions, encodes the entanglement of metallicity with dynamics within the Galaxy's stellar halo. Our maximum-likelihood fit of the EDF to the data allows us to model the survey's selection function. The density profile of the K giants steepens with radius from a slope ~-2 to ~-4 at large radii. The halo's axis ratio increases with radius from 0.7 to almost unity. The metal-rich stars are more tightly confined in action space than the metal-poor stars and form a more flattened structure. A weak metallicity gradient ~-0.001 dex/kpc, a small gradient in the dispersion in [Fe/H] of ~0.001 dex/kpc, and a higher degree of radial anistropy in metal-richer stars result. Lognormal components with peaks at ~-1.5 and ~-2.3 are required to capture the overall metallicity distribution, suggestive of the existence of two populations of K giants. The spherical anisotropy parameter varies between 0.3 in the inner halo to isotropic in the outer halo. If the Sagittarius stream is included, a very similar model is found but with a stronger degree of radial anisotropy throughout.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

A review of action estimation methods for galactic dynamics

We review the available methods for estimating actions, angles and frequencies of orbits in both axisymmetric and triaxial potentials. The methods are separated into two classes. Unless an orbit has been trapped by a resonance, convergent, or iterative, methods are able to recover the actions to arbitrarily high accuracy given sufficient computing time. Faster non-convergent methods rely on the potential being sufficiently close to a separable potential and the accuracy of the action estimate cannot be improved through further computation. We critically compare the accuracy of the methods and the required computation time for a range of orbits in an axisymmetric multi-component Galactic potential. We introduce a new method for estimating actions that builds on the adiabatic approximation of Schönich & Binney (2012) and discuss the accuracy required for the actions, angles and frequencies using suitable distribution functions for the thin and thick discs, the stellar halo and a star stream. We conclude that for studies of the disc and smooth halo component of the Milky Way the most suitable compromise between speed and accuracy is the Stäckel Fudge, whilst when studying streams the non-convergent methods do not offer sufficient accuracy and the most suitable method is computing the actions from an orbit integration via a generating function. All the software used in this study can be downloaded from https://github.com/jls713/tact.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Chemodynamical modelling of the Milky Way

Chemodynamical models of our Galaxy that have analytic Extended Distribution Functions (EDFs) are likely to play a key role in extracting science from surveys in the era of Gaia.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Torus mapper: a code for dynamical models of galaxies

We present a freely downloadable software package for modelling the dynamics of galaxies, which we call the Torus Mapper (TM). The package is based around `torus mapping', which is a non-perturbative technique for creating orbital tori for specified values of the action integrals. Given an orbital torus and a star's position at a reference time, one can compute its position at any other time, no matter how remote. One can also compute the velocities with which the star will pass through any given point and the contribution it will make to the time-averaged density there. A system of angle-action coordinates for the given potential can be created by foliating phase space with orbital tori. Such a foliation is facilitated by the ability of TM to create tori by interpolating on a grid of tori. We summarise the advantages of using TM rather than a standard time-stepper to create orbits, and give segments of code that illustrate applications of TM in several contexts, including setting up initial conditions for an N-body simulation. We examine the precision of the orbital tori created by TM and the behaviour of the code when orbits become trapped by a resonance.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

The distribution function of the Galaxy's dark halo

Starting from the hypothesis that the Galaxy's dark halo responded adiabatically to the infall of baryons, we have constructed a self-consistent dynamical model of the Galaxy that satisfies a large number of observations, including measurements of gas terminal velocities and masers, the kinematics of a 180,000 giant stars from the RAVE survey, and star count data from the SDSS. The stellar disc and the dark halo are both specified by distribution functions (DFs) of the action integrals. The model is obtained by extending the work of Piffl Penoyre & Binney (2015} from the construction of a single model to a systematic search of model space. Whereas the model of Piffl et al violated constraints on the terminal-velocity curve, our model respects these constraints by adopting a long scale length R_d=3.66 kpc for the thin and thick discs. The model is, however, inconsistent with the measured optical depth for microlensing of bulge stars because it attributes too large a fraction of the density at R <~ 3 kpc to dark matter rather than stars. Moreover, it now seems likely that the thick disc's scale-length is significantly shorter than the model implies. Shortening this scale-length would cause the constraints from the rotation curve to be violated anew. We conclude that we can now rule out adiabatic compression of our Galaxy's dark halo.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Extended distribution functions for our Galaxy

We extend models of our Galaxy based on distribution functions (DFs) that are analytic functions of the action integrals to extended distribution functions (EDFs), which have an analytic dependence on metallicity as well. We use a simple, but physically-motivated, functional forms for the metallicity of the interstellar medium as a function of radius and time and for the star-formation rate, and a model for the diffusion of stars through phase space to suggest the required functional form of an EDF. We introduce a simple prescription for radial migration that preserves the overall profile of the disc while allowing individual stars to migrate throughout the disc. Our models explicitly consider the thin and thick discs as two distinct components separated in age. We show how an EDF can be used to incorporate realistic selection functions in models, and to construct mock catalogues of observed samples. We show that the selection function of the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (GCS) biases in favour of young stars, which have atypically small random velocities. With the selection function taken into account our models produce good fits of the GCS data in chemo-dynamical space and the Gilmore and Reid (1983) density data. From our EDF, we predict the structure of the SEGUE G-dwarf sample. The kinematics are successfully predicted. The predicted metallicity distribution has too few stars with [Fe/H]$\simeq-0.5$ dex and too many metal-rich stars. A significant problem may be the lack of any chemical-kinematic correlations in our thick disc. We argue that EDFs will prove essential tools for the analysis of both observational data and sophisticated models of Galaxy formation and evolution.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Gas flow in barred potentials II. Bar Driven Spiral Arms

Spiral arms that emerge from the ends of a galactic bar are important in interpreting observations of our and external galaxies. It is therefore important to understand the physical mechanism that causes them. We find that these spiral arms can be understood as kinematic density waves generated by librations around underlying ballistic closed orbits. This is even true in the case of a strong bar, provided the librations are around the appropriate closed orbits and not around the circular orbits that form the basis of the epicycle approximation. An important consequence is that it is a potential's orbital structure that determines whether a bar should be classified as weak or strong, and not crude estimates of the potential's deviation from axisymmetry.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Self-gravity, resonances and orbital diffusion in stellar discs

Fluctuations in a stellar system's gravitational field cause the orbits of stars to evolve. The resulting evolution of the system can be computed with the orbit-averaged Fokker-Planck equation once the diffusion tensor is known. We present the formalism that enables one to compute the diffusion tensor from a given source of noise in the gravitational field when the system's dynamical response to that noise is included. In the case of a cool stellar disc we are able to reduce the computation of the diffusion tensor to a one-dimensional integral. We implement this formula for a tapered Mestel disc that is exposed to shot noise and find that we are able to explain analytically the principal features of a numerical simulation of such a disc. In particular the formation of narrow ridges of enhanced density in action space is recovered. As the disc's value of Toomre's $Q$ is reduced and the disc becomes more responsive, there is a transition from a regime of heating in the inner regions of the disc through the inner Lindblad resonance to one of radial migration of near-circular orbits via the corotation resonance in the intermediate regions of the disc. The formalism developed here provides the ideal framework in which to study the long-term evolution of all kinds of stellar discs.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Gas flow in barred potentials

We use a Cartesian grid to simulate the flow of gas in a barred Galactic potential and investigate the effects of varying the sound speed in the gas and the resolution of the grid. For all sound speeds and resolutions, streamlines closely follow closed orbits at large and small radii. At intermediate radii shocks arise and the streamlines shift between two families of closed orbits. The point at which the shocks appear and the streamlines shift between orbit families depends strongly on sound speed and resolution. For sufficiently large values of these two parameters, the transfer happens at the cusped orbit as hypothesised by Binney et al. over two decades ago. For sufficiently high resolutions the flow downstream of the shocks becomes unsteady. If this unsteadiness is physical, as appears to be the case, it provides a promising explanation for the asymmetry in the observed distribution of CO.

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