We study the age and metallicity distribution function (MDF) of metal-poor stars in the Milky Way halo as a function of galactocentric radius by combining N-body simulations and semi-analytical methods. We find that the oldest stars populate the innermost region, while extremely metal-poor stars are more concentrated within r < 60 kpc. The MDF of [Fe/H] < -2 stars varies only very weakly within the central 50 kpc, while the relative contribution of [Fe/H] < -2 stars strongly increases with r, varying from 16% within 7 kpc < r < 20 kpc up to > 40% for r > 20 kpc. This is due to the faster descent of the spatial distribution (as seen from Earth) of the more enriched population. This implies that the outer halo < 40 kpc is the best region to search for very metal-poor stars. Beyond ~ 60 kpc the density of [Fe/H] < -2 stars is maximum within dwarf galaxies. All these features are imprinted by a combination of (i) the virialization epoch of the star-forming haloes, and (ii) the metal enrichment history of the Milky Way environment.
Motivated by previous findings that the magnitude gap between certain satellite galaxy and the central galaxy can be used to improve the estimation of halo mass, we carry out a systematic study of the information content of different member galaxies in the modelling of the host halo mass using a machine learning approach. We employ data from the hydrodynamical simulation IllustrisTNG and train a Random Forest (RF) algorithm to predict a halo mass from the stellar masses of its member galaxies. Exhaustive feature selection is adopted to disentangle the importances of different galaxy members. W…
Using HST/COS/STIS and HIRES/Keck high-resolution spectra, we have studied a remarkable HI absorbing complex at z=0.672 toward the quasar Q1317+277. The HI absorption has a velocity spread of 1600 km/s, comprises 21 Voigt profile components, and resides at an impact parameter of D=58 kpc from a bright, high mass [log(M_vir/M_sun) ~ 13.7] elliptical galaxy that is deduced to have a 6 Gyr old, solar metallicity stellar population. Ionization models suggest the majority of the structure is cold gas surrounding a shock heated cloud that is kinematically adjacent to a multi-phase group of clouds wi…
The orbital motions of halo stars in the Milky Way reflect the orbital motions of the progenitor systems in which they formed, making it possible to trace the mass-assembly history of the Galaxy. Direct measurement of three-dimensional velocities, based on accurate proper motions and line-of-sight velocities, has revealed that the majority of halo stars in the inner-halo region move on eccentric orbits. However, our understanding of the motions of distant, in-situ halo-star samples is still limited, due to the lack of accurate proper motions for these stars. Here we explore a model-independent…
We present a high spectral resolution survey of the most metal-poor damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems (DLAs) aimed at probing the nature and nucleosynthesis of the earliest generations of stars. Our survey comprises 22 systems with iron abundance less than 1/100 solar; observations of seven of these are reported here for the first time. Together with recent measures of the abundances of C and O in Galactic metal-poor stars, we reinvestigate the trend of C/O in the very metal-poor regime and we compare, for the first time, the O/Fe ratios in the most metal-poor DLAs and in halo stars. We co…
We present Keck/HIRES spectra of 3 globular clusters in the outer halo of M31, at projected distances beyond ~80 kpc from M31. The measured recession velocities for all 3 globular clusters confirm their association with the globular cluster system of M31. We find evidence for a declining velocity dispersion with radius for the globular cluster system. Their measured internal velocity dispersions, derived virial masses and mass-to-light ratios are consistent with those for the bulk of the M31 globular cluster system. We derive old ages and metallicities which indicate that all 3 belong to the m…
Current cosmological models indicate that the Milky Way's stellar halo was assembled from many smaller systems. Based on the apparent absence of the most metal-poor stars in present-day dwarf galaxies, recent studies claimed that the true Galactic building blocks must have been vastly different from the surviving dwarfs. The discovery of an extremely iron-poor star (S1020549) in the Sculptor dwarf galaxy based on a medium-resolution spectrum cast some doubt on this conclusion. However, verification of the iron-deficiency and measurements of additional elements, such as the alpha-element Mg, ar…
The local velocity distribution of dark matter plays an integral role in interpreting the results from direct detection experiments. We previously showed that metal-poor halo stars serve as excellent tracers of the virialized dark matter velocity distribution using a high-resolution hydrodynamic simulation of a Milky Way--like halo. In this paper, we take advantage of the first \textit{Gaia} data release, coupled with spectroscopic measurements from the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE), to study the kinematics of stars belonging to the metal-poor halo within an average distance of $\sim 5$ kp…
We conduct numerical experiments by evolving gaseous/stellar disks embedded in live dark matter halos aiming at quantifying the effect of gas spatial resolution and gas content on the bar evolution. Model sequences have been constructed using different resolution, and gas fraction has been varied along each sequence within fgas=0%-50%, keeping the disk and halo properties unchanged. We find that the spatial resolution becomes important with an increase in `fgas'. For the higher resolution model sequences, we observe a bimodal behavior in the bar evolution with respect to the gas fraction, espe…
Theory and observations agree that the accreted stellar halos (ASHs) of Milky Way-like galaxies display significant scatter. I take advantage of this stochasticity to invert the link between halo assembly history (HAH) and ASH, using mock ASHs corresponding to 750 $Λ$CDM HAHs, sharing a final virial mass of $M_{h}(z=0)=10^{12.25}M_\odot$. Hosts with poor/rich ASHs assemble following orthogonal growth-patterns. Hosts with rich ASHs experience accretion events (AEs) with high virial mass ratios (HVMRs, $M_s/M_h\gtrsim 0.1$) at $0.5\lesssim z_{infall}\lesssim1.5$, in a phase of fast growth. This …
We propose that cold filamentary accretion in massive galaxies at high redshift can lead to the formation of star-forming clumps in the halos of these galaxies without the presence of dark matter sub-structure. In certain cases, these clumps can be the birth places of metal poor globular-clusters (MP GCs). Using cosmological simulations, we show that narrow streams of dense gas feeding massive galaxies from the cosmic web can fragment, producing star-forming clumps. We then derive an analytical model for the properties of streams as a function of halo mass and redshift, and assess when these a…
Here we study the metallicity bias in the velocity dispersions, the derived quantity called anisotropy and the mean azimuthal velocity profiles of the Milky Way stellar halo using Blue Horizontal Branch (BHB) stars taken from SDSS/SEGUE survey. The comparatively metal-rich sample ([Fe/H]>-2) has prograde motion and is found to have an offset of 40 km/s in the mean azimuthal velocity with respect to a metal-poor sample ([Fe/H]<=-2) which has retrograde motion. The difference in rotation between the most metal-poor and most metal-rich population was found to be around 65 km/s. For galactocentric…
As part of our survey of galactic stellar halos, we investigate the structure and stellar populations of the northern outer part of the stellar halo in NGC55, a member galaxy of the Sculptor Group, using deep and wide-field V- and I-band images taken with Subaru/Suprime-Cam. Based on the analysis of the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) for red-giant-branch (RGB) stars, we derive a tip of RGB (TRGB)-based distance modulus to the galaxy of (m-M)_0 = 26.58 +/- 0.11 (d = 2.1 +/- 0.1 Mpc). From the stellar density maps, we detect the asymmetrically disturbed, thick disk structure and two metal-poor …
We present Suzaku off-center observations of two poor galaxy groups, NGC 3402 and NGC 5129, with temperatures below 1 keV. Through spectral decomposition, we measured their surface brightnesses and temperatures out to 530 and 1430 times the critical density of the universe for NGC 3402 and NGC 5129, respectively. These quantities are consistent with extrapolations from existing inner measurements of the two groups. With the refined bolometric X-ray luminosities, both groups prefer $L_X$-$T$ relations without a break in the group regime. Furthermore, we have determined the electron number densi…
The abundance patterns of the most metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo and small dwarf galaxies provide us with a wealth of information about the early Universe. In particular, these old survivors allow us to study the nature of the first stars and supernovae, the relevant nucleosynthesis processes responsible for the formation and evolution of the elements, early star- and galaxy formation processes, as well as the assembly process of the stellar halo from dwarf galaxies a long time ago. This review presents the current state of the field of "stellar archaeology" -- the diverse use of metal…
A galaxy's mean metallicity is usually closely correlated with its luminosity and mass. Consequently the most metal-poor galaxies in the local universe are dwarf galaxies. Blue compact dwarfs and tidal dwarfs tend to deviate from the metallicity-luminosity relation by being too metal-poor or too metal-rich for their luminosity, respectively. A less pronounced offset separates dwarf spheroidal (dSph) and dwarf irregular galaxies, making the former too metal-rich for their luminosity, which indicates different formation conditions for these two types of dwarfs. While environment (photo-evaporati…
We present detailed radiative transfer simulations of the reionization history of the Milky Way by metal-poor globular clusters. We identify potential metal-poor globular cluster candidates within the Aquarius simulation using dark matter halo velocity dispersions. We calculate the local ionization fields via a photon-conserving, three dimensional non-equilibrium chemistry code and allow the model to propagate through to the present day. The key feature of the model is that globular cluster formation is suppressed if the local gas is ionized. We find that our spatial treatment of the ionizatio…
The Milky Way dark matter halo is formed from the accretion of smaller subhalos. These sub-units also harbor stars---typically old and metal-poor---that are deposited in the Galactic inner regions by disruption events. In this Letter, we show that the dark matter and metal-poor stars in the Solar neighborhood share similar kinematics due to their common origin. Using the high-resolution Eris simulation, which traces the evolution of both the dark matter and baryons in a realistic Milky-Way analog galaxy, we demonstrate that metal-poor stars are indeed effective tracers for the local, virialize…
We present an analysis of the large-scale structure of the halo of the Andromeda galaxy, based on the Pan-Andromeda Archeological Survey (PAndAS), currently the most complete map of resolved stellar populations in any galactic halo. Despite copious substructure, the global halo populations follow closely power law profiles that become steeper with increasing metallicity. We divide the sample into stream-like populations and a smooth halo component. Fitting a three-dimensional halo model reveals that the most metal-poor populations ([Fe/H]<-1.7) are distributed approximately spherically (slight…
