Identifying the Major Star Formation Epoch{s} in the Outlying M31 Dwarf Spheroidal Companion Cassiopeia

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Hst Proposal Id #10430 Stellar Populations

Scientific paper

The Galaxy's dwarf spheroidal {dSph} companions show a surprising diversity in the epochs of their major star formation episodes, which extend from 15 to 1 Gyr. For Galactic dSphs there is correlation between Galactocentric distance and the prominence of intermediate-age { 2-10 Gyr} populations; the dSphs with extended star formation lie at larger Galactocentric distance. This correlation may also apply to M31's dSph companions. Our WFPC2 data {Da Costa et al. 2000} show that And II lies at a true distance of between 160 and 230 kpc from M31, comparable to the Galactocentric distances of the Galaxy's outer dSphs satellites, and further than the other M31 Companions studied in detail so far. This dSph shows convincing evidence for an intermediate-age { 6-9 Gyr} population, which the other well-studied M31 dSphs lack. Only the recently discovered M31 dSphs companions And VI and Cassiopeia lie at larger distances from the center of M31 than And II. The pri mary aim of this proposal is to determine a color-magnitude diagram for the Cassiopeia dSph which reaches below the horizontal branch. With these data we will constrain the epoch of the main star formation episode in Cassiopeia, adding to our knowledge of how star formation in dwarf galaxies is affected by the presence of a larger neighbor. Additional results will include measurement of the true distance from M31, mean abundance, abundance dispersion, and the variable star content. With these observations, the investigation of the stellar populations down to the horizontal branch of the known M31 dSphs with HST will be complete.

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