Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Galaxy Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2012-01-27
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Galaxy Astrophysics
12 pages, 8 figures, submitted to MNRAS
Scientific paper
It is now known that minor mergers are capable of creating structure in the phase-space distribution of their host galaxy's disc. In order to search for such imprints in the Milky Way, we analyse the SEGUE G-dwarf and the Schuster et al. (2006) stellar samples. We find similar features in these two completely independent stellar samples, consistent with the predictions of a Milky Way minor-merger event. We next apply the same analyses to high-resolution, idealised N-body simulations of the interaction between the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy and the Milky Way. The energy distributions of stellar samples in small spatial regions in the host disc reveal strong variations of structure with position. We find remarkable matches to the observations for models with a mass of Sagittarius' dark matter halo progenitor $\lessapprox 10^{11}$ M$_{\odot}$. Thus, we show that this kind of analysis could be used to provide unprecedentedly tight constraints on Sagittarius' orbital parameters, as well as place a lower limit on its mass.
An Deokkeun
Beers Timothy C.
Bullock James S.
Gómez Facundo A.
Lee Young Sun
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