Published in

American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 2(751), p. 130, 2012

DOI: 10.1088/0004-637x/751/2/130

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

The Kinematics and Chemistry of Red Horizontal Branch Stars in the Sagittarius Streams

Journal article published in 2012 by W. B. Shi, Y. Q. Chen, K. Carrell ORCID, G. Zhao
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We have selelcted 556 Red Horizontal Branch (RHB) stars along the streams of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy (Sgr) from SDSS DR7 spectroscopic data using a theoretical model. The metallicity and α-elements distributions are investigated for stars in the Sgr streams and for Galactic stars at the same locations. We find that the Sgr stars have two peaks in the metallicity distribution while the Galactic stars have a more prominent metal-poor peak. Meanwhile, [α/Fe] ratios of the Sgr stars are lower than those of the Galactic stars. Among the Sgr stars, we find a difference in the metallicity distribution between the leading and trailing arms of the Sgr tidal tails. The metallicity and [α/Fe] distribution of the leading arm is similar to that of the Galaxy. The trailing arm is composed mainly of a metal rich component and [α/Fe] is obviously lower than that of the Galactic stars. The metallicity gradient is -(1.8 ± 0.3)\times10^{-3} dex degree^{-1} in the first wrap of the trailing arm and -(1.5 ± 0.4)\times10^{-3} dex degree^{-1} in the first wrap of the leading arm. No significant gradient exists along the second wraps of the leading or trailing arms. It seems that the Sgr dwarf galaxy initially lost the metal poor component in the second wrap (older) arms due to the tidal force of our Galaxy and then the metal rich component is disrupted in the first wrap (younger) arms. Finally, we found that the velocity dispersion of the trailing arm from 88^∘