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Register a new userBefore the Bar: Kinematic Detection of A Spheroidal Metal-Poor Bulge Component
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We present 947 radial velocities of RR Lyrae variable stars in four fields located toward the Galactic bulge, observed within the data from the ongoing Bulge RR Lyrae Radial Velocity Assay (BRAVA-RR). We show that these RR Lyrae stars exhibit hot kinematics and null or negligible rotation and are therefore members of a separate population from the bar/pseudobulge that currently dominates the mass and luminosity of the inner Galaxy. Our RR Lyrae stars predate these structures, and have metallicities, kinematics, and spatial distribution that are consistent with a classical bulge, although we cannot yet completely rule out the possibility that they are the metal-poor tail of a more metal rich ([Fe/H] ~ -1 dex) halo-bulge population. The complete catalog of radial velocities for the BRAVA-RR stars is also published electronically.
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Cosmological models predict the oldest stars in the Galaxy should be found closest to the centre of the potential well, in the bulge. The EMBLA Survey successfully searched for these old, metal-poor stars by making use of the distinctive SkyMapper photometric filters to discover candidate metal-poor stars in the bulge. Their metal-poor nature was then confirmed using the AAOmega spectrograph on the AAT. Here we present an abundance analysis of 10 bulge stars with -2.8<[Fe/H]<-1.7 from MIKE/Magellan observations, in total determining the abundances of 22 elements. Combining these results with our previous high-resolution data taken as part of the Gaia-ESO Survey, we have started to put together a picture of the chemical and kinematic nature of the most metal-poor stars in the bulge. The currently available kinematic data is consistent with the stars belonging to the bulge, although more accurate measurements are needed to constrain the stars orbits. The chemistry of these bulge stars deviates from that found in halo stars of the same metallicity. Two notable differences are the absence of carbon-enhanced metal-poor bulge stars, and the alpha-element abundances exhibit a large intrinsic scatter and include stars which are underabundant in these typically enhanced elements.
The characteristics of the stellar populations in the Galactic Bulge inform and constrain the Milky Ways formation and evolution. The metal-poor population is particularly important in light of cosmological simulations, which predict that some of the oldest stars in the Galaxy now reside in its center. The metal-poor bulge appears to consist of multiple stellar populations that require dynamical analyses to disentangle. In this work, we undertake a detailed chemodynamical study of the metal-poor stars in the inner Galaxy. Using R$sim$ 20,000 VLT/GIRAFFE spectra of 319 metal-poor (-2.55 dex$leq$[Fe/H]$leq$0.83 dex, with $overline{rm{[Fe/H]}}$=-0.84 dex) stars, we perform stellar parameter analysis and report 12 elemental abundances (C, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Mn, Zn, Ba, and Ce) with precisions of $approx$0.10 dex. Based on kinematic and spatial properties, we categorise the stars into four groups, associated with the following Galactic structures: the inner bulge, the outer bulge, the halo, and the disk. We find evidence that the inner and outer bulge population is more chemically complex (i.e., higher chemical dimensionality and less correlated abundances) than the halo population. This result suggests that the older bulge population was enriched by a larger diversity of nucleosynthetic events. We also find one inner bulge star with a [Ca/Mg] ratio consistent with theoretical pair-instability supernova yields and two stars that have chemistry consistent with globular cluster stars.
Metal-poor stars play an import role in the understanding of Galaxy formation and evolution. Evidence of the early mergers that built up the Galaxy might remain in the distributions of abundances, kinematics, and orbital parameters of the stars. In this work, we report on preliminary results of an on-going chemo-kinematic analysis of a sample of metal-poor ([Fe/H] $leq$ -1.0) stars observed by the GALAH spectroscopic survey. We explored the chemical and orbital data with unsupervised machine learning (hierarchical clustering, k-means cluster analysis and correlation matrices). Our final goal is to find an optimal way to separate different Galactic stellar populations and stellar groups originating from merging events, such as Gaia-Enceladus and Sequoia.
The first stars are predicted to have formed within 200 million years after the Big Bang, initiating the cosmic dawn. A true first star has not yet been discovered, although stars with tiny amounts of elements heavier than helium (metals) have been found in the outer regions (halo) of the Milky Way. The first stars and their immediate successors should, however, preferentially be found today in the central regions (bulges) of galaxies, because they formed in the largest over-densities that grew gravitationally with time. The Milky Way bulge underwent a rapid chemical enrichment during the first 1-2 billion years, leading to a dearth of early, metal-poor stars. Here we report observations of extremely metal-poor stars in the Milky Way bulge, including one star with an iron abundance about 10,000 times lower than the solar value without noticeable carbon enhancement. We confirm that the most metal-poor bulge stars are on tight orbits around the Galactic Centre, rather than being halo stars passing through the bulge, as expected for stars formed at redshifts greater than 15. Their chemical compositions are in general similar to typical halo stars of the same metallicity although intriguing differences exist, including lower abundances of carbon.
The study of the chemical abundances of metal-poor stars in dwarf galaxies provides a venue to constrain paradigms of chemical enrichment and galaxy formation. Here we present metallicity and carbon abundance measurements of 100 stars in Sculptor from medium-resolution (R ~ 2000) spectra taken with the Magellan/Michigan Fiber System mounted on the Magellan-Clay 6.5m telescope at Las Campanas Observatory. We identify 24 extremely metal-poor star candidates ([Fe/H] < -3.0) and 21 carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) star candidates. Eight carbon-enhanced stars are classified with at least 2$sigma$ confidence and five are confirmed as such with follow-up R~6000 observations using the Magellan Echellette Spectrograph on the Magellan-Baade 6.5m telescope. We measure a CEMP fraction of 36% for stars below [Fe/H] = -3.0, indicating that the prevalence of carbon-enhanced stars in Sculptor is similar to that of the halo (~43%) after excluding likely CEMP-s and CEMP-r/s stars from our sample. However, we do not detect that any CEMP stars are strongly enhanced in carbon (e.g., [C/Fe] > 1.0). The existence of a large number of CEMP stars both in the halo and in Sculptor suggests that some halo CEMP stars may have originated from accreted early analogs of dwarf galaxies.
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