IngentaConnect Accretion relics in the solar neighbourhood: debris from Cen's pa...

Abstract:

We use numerical simulations to investigate the orbital characteristics of tidal debris from satellites whose orbits are dragged into the plane of galactic discs by dynamical friction before disruption. We find that these satellites may deposit a significant fraction of their stars into the disc components of a galaxy, and use our results to motivate the search for accretion relics in samples of metal-poor disc stars in the vicinity of the Sun. Satellites disrupted on very eccentric orbits coplanar with the disc are expected to shed stars in `trails' of distinct orbital energy and angular momentum during each pericentric passage. To an observer located between the pericentre and apocentre of such orbits, these trails would show as distinct groupings of stars with low vertical velocity and a broad, symmetric, often double-peaked distribution of Galactocentric radial velocities. One group of stars with these characteristics stands out in available compilations of nearby metal-poor stars. These stars have specific angular momenta similar to that of the globular cluster ωCen, long hypothesized to be the nucleus of a dwarf galaxy disrupted by the Milky Way tidal field. In addition to their kindred kinematics, stars in the ωCen group share distinct chemical abundance characteristics, and trace a well-defined track in the [α/Fe] versus [Fe/H] plane, consistent with simple closed-box enrichment models and a protracted star formation history. The dynamical and chemical coherence of this group suggests that it consists of stars that once belonged to the dwarf that brought ωCen into the Galaxy. The presence of this and other `tidal relics' in the solar neighbourhood suggest an extra-Galactic origin for the presence of nearby stars with odd kinematics and chemistry, and implies that accounting for stars contributed by distinct satellite galaxies may be crucial to the success of models of Galactic chemical enrichment.

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Accretion relics in the solar neighbourhood: debris from ωCen's parent galaxy