Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21720703d&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #207.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Trends in stellar kinematics in the inner regions of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) offer insight into the structure and formation of spiral galaxies. The synthesis of the SPLASH (Spectroscopic and Photometric Landscape of Andromeda's Stellar Halo) and PHAT (Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury) collaborations offers an unprecedented opportunity to understand the interplay between the assembly, star formation, and chemical enrichment histories of large disk galaxies.
We present a Keck/DEIMOS multislit spectroscopic study of the resolved red giant star population in the southern and eastern quadrants of M31. Targets are selected from two overlapping astrometric/photometric catalogs: the ground-based CFHT/MegaCam 2 deg x 2 deg mosaic image, and existing Year 1 PHAT survey data embedded within the area of the CFHT mosaic. Radial velocities are measured for about 5000 red giant stars, and for ambient ionized gas in M31, the latter being an unexpected byproduct of this study. The 2D pattern of stellar velocities are compared to a simple model with two components: one with high vrot/sigma associated with an exponential disk and one with low vrot/sigma associated with a Sersic bulge. A detailed comparison is carried out between the kinematics of the stellar disk and that of the ionized gas, the latter plausibly associated with M31's star-forming thin disk.
Our study will ultimately address questions such as: How dynamically hot is the stellar disk of M31? Is there evidence for a distinct thick disk? What are the roles of heating and accretion in the formation of stellar disks?
This research was supported by NASA and NSF.
Bullock James
Consiglio J.
Cuillandre J.
Dalcanton Julianne J.
Dorman Claire
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