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Register a new userThe Star Formation History in the M31 Bulge
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Hui Dong
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We present the study of stellar populations in the central 5.5 (~1.2 kpc) of the M31 bulge by using the optical color magnitude diagram derived from HST ACS WFC/HRC observations. In order to enhance image quality and then obtain deeper photometry, we construct Nyquist-sampled images and use a deconvolution method to detect sources and measure their photometry. We demonstrate that our method performs better than DOLPHOT in the extremely crowded region. The resolved stars in the M31 bulge have been divided into nine annuli and the color magnitude diagram fitting is performed for each of them. We confirm that the majority of stars (> 70%) in the M31 bulge are indeed very old (>5 Gyr) and metal-rich ([Fe/H] > 0.3). At later times, the star formation rate decreased and then experienced a significant rise around 1 Gyr ago, which pervaded the entire M31 bulge. After that, stars formed at less than 500 Myr ago in the central 130. Through simulation, we find that these intermediate-age stars cannot be the artifacts introduced by the blending effect. Our results suggest that although the majority of the M31 bulge are very old, the secular evolutionary process still continuously builds up the M31 bulge slowly. We compare our star formation history with an older analysis derived from the spectral energy distribution fitting, which suggests that the latter one is still a reasonable tool for the study of stellar populations in remote galaxies.
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We present deep Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys observations of the stellar populations in two fields lying at 20 and 23 kpc from the centre of M31 along the south-west semi-major axis. These data enable the construction of colour-magnitude diagrams reaching the oldest main-sequence turn-offs (~13 Gyr) which, when combined with another field at 25 kpc from our previous work, we use to derive the first precision constraints on the spatially-resolved star formation history of the M31 disc. The star formation rates exhibit temporal as well as field-to-field variations, but are generally always within a factor of two of their time average. There is no evidence of inside-out growth over the radial range probed. We find a median age of ~7.5 Gyr, indicating that roughly half of the stellar mass in the M31 outer disc was formed before z ~ 1. We also find that the age-metallicity relations (AMRs) are smoothly increasing from [Fe/H]~-0.4 to solar metallicity between 10 and 3 Gyr ago, contrary to the flat AMR of the Milky Way disc at a similar number of scale lengths. Our findings provide insight on the roles of stellar feedback and radial migration in the formation and evolution of large disc galaxies.
We present a detailed analysis of two fields located 26 kpc (~5 scalelengths) from the centre of M31. One field samples the major axis populations--the Outer Disc field--while the other is offset by ~18 and samples the Warp in the stellar disc. The CMDs based on HST/ACS imaging reach old main-sequence turn-offs (~12.5 Gyr). We apply the CMD-fitting technique to the Warp field to reconstruct the star formation history (SFH). We find that after undergoing roughly constant SF until about 4.5 Gyr ago, there was a rapid decline in activity and then a ~1.5 Gyr lull, followed by a strong burst lasting 1.5 Gyr and responsible for 25% of the total stellar mass in this field. This burst appears to be accompanied by a decline in metallicity which could be a signature of the inflow of metal-poor gas. The onset of the burst (~3 Gyr ago) corresponds to the last close passage of M31 and M33 as predicted by detailed N-body modelling, and may have been triggered by this event. We reprocess the deep M33 outer disc field data of Barker et al. (2011) in order to compare consistently-derived SFHs. This reveals a similar duration burst that is exactly coeval with that seen in the M31 Warp field, lending further support to the interaction hypothesis. The complex SFHs and the smoothly-varying age-metallicity relations suggest that the stellar populations observed in the far outer discs of both galaxies have largely formed in situ rather than migrated from smaller galactocentric radii. The strong differential reddening affecting the CMD of the Outer Disc field prevents derivation of the SFH. Instead, we quantify this reddening and find that the fine-scale distribution of dust precisely follows that of the HI gas. This indicates that the outer HI disc of M31 contains a substantial amount of dust and therefore suggests significant metal enrichment in these parts, consistent with inferences from our CMD analysis.
We map the star formation history across M31 by fitting stellar evolution models to color-magnitude diagrams of each 83${times}$83$$ (0.3$times$1.4 kpc, deprojected) region of the PHAT survey outside of the innermost 6${times}$12$$ portion. We find that most of the star formation occurred prior to $sim$8 Gyr ago, followed by a relatively quiescent period until $sim$4 Gyr ago, a subsequent star formation episode about 2 Gyr ago and a return to relative quiescence. There appears to be little, if any, structure visible for populations with ages older than 2 Gyr, suggesting significant mixing since that epoch. Finally, assuming a Kroupa IMF from 0.1$-$100 M$_{odot}$, we find that the total amount of star formation over the past 14 Gyr in the area over which we have fit models is 5${times}$10$^{10}$ M$_{odot}$. Fitting the radial distribution of this star formation and assuming azimuthal symmetry, (1.5$pm$0.2)${times}$10$^{11}$ M$_{odot}$ of stars have formed in the M31 disk as a whole, (9$pm$2)${times}$10$^{10}$ M$_{odot}$ of which has likely survived to the present after accounting for evolutionary effects. This mass is about one fifth of the total dynamical mass of M31.
The stellar population of the Milky Way bulge is thoroughly studied, with a plethora of measurements from virtually the full suite of instruments available to astronomers. It is thus perhaps surprising that alongside well-established results lies some substantial uncertainty in its star-formation history. Cosmological models predict the bulge to host the Galaxys oldest stars for [Fe/H]$lesssim -1$, and this is demonstrated by RR Lyrae stars and globular cluster observations. There is consensus that bulge stars with [Fe/H]$lesssim0$ are older than $t approx10$ Gyr. However, at super-solar metallicity, there is a substantial unresolved discrepancy. Data from spectroscopic measurements of the main-sequence turnoff and subgiant branch, the abundances of asymptotic giant branch stars, the period distribution of Mira variables, the chemistry and central-star masses of planetary nebulae, all suggest a substantial intermediate-age population ($t approx 3$ Gyr). This is in conflict with predictions from cosmologically-motivated chemical evolution models and photometric studies of the main-sequence turnoff region, which both suggest virtually no stars younger than $t approx 8$ Gyr. A possible resolution to this conflict is enhanced helium-enrichment, as this would shift nearly all of the age estimates in the direction of decreasing discrepancy. Enhanced helium-enrichment is also arguably suggested by measurements of the red giant branch bump and the R-parameter.
The rich SMC star cluster NGC419 has recently been found to present both a broad main sequence turn-off and a dual red clump of giants, in the sharp colour-magnitude diagrams (CMD) derived from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope. In this work, we apply to the NGC419 data the classical method of star formation history (SFH) recovery via CMD reconstruction, deriving for the first time this function for a star cluster with multiple turn-offs. The values for the cluster metallicity, reddening, distance and binary fraction, were varied within the limits allowed by present observations. The global best-fitting solution is an excellent fit to the data, reproducing all the CMD features with striking accuracy. The corresponding star formation rate is provided together with estimates of its random and systematic errors. Star formation is found to last for at least 700 Myr, and to have a marked peak at the middle of this interval, for an age of 1.5 Gyr. Our findings argue in favour of multiple star formation episodes (or continued star formation) being at the origin of the multiple main sequence turn-offs in Magellanic Cloud clusters with ages around 1 Gyr. It remains to be tested whether alternative hypotheses, such as a main sequence spread caused by rotation, could produce similarly good fits to the data.
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