The Star Formation and Chemical Enrichment History of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy

Computer Science

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

According to popular models of galaxy formation, dwarf galaxies are thought to be the primordial building blocks of larger galaxies. As such, investigating the global properties of dwarf galaxies is integral to understanding galaxy formation in general. In light of this, the relative proximity and unique appearance of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy (Sgr) provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the detailed properties of a gas-poor dwarf. Our existing data, which is based on less than 1% of the spatial extent of Sgr on the sky, indicates that the age-metallicity relation of Sgr is consistent with a closed-box constant star formation model of chemical enrichment. If true, this imposes some surprising and important constraints on how and where Sgr formed. Our existing data also suggest that the stellar populations in Sgr may vary in relative strength from place to place within Sgr, and they provide a tantalizing first look at how the star formation rate changed as a function of time in Sgr. To place all of these results on a firmer footing, it is imperative to extend our analysis to a larger fraction of Sgr. We propose to increase our areal coverage of Sgr by more than 25 times! The resulting photometry will be compared with theoretical models of chemical evolution and with synthetic color- magnitude diagrams to fully unravel the star formation history of the main body of Sgr.

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