Orbital eccentricity as a probe of thick disc formation scenarios
Open accessAbstract
We study the orbital properties of stars in four (published) simulations of thick discs formed by (i) accretion from disrupted satellites, (ii) heating of a pre-existing thin disc by a minor merger, (iii) radial migration and (iv) gas-rich mergers. We find that the distribution of orbital eccentricities is predicted to be different for each model: a prominent peak at low eccentricity is expected for the heating, migration and gas-rich merging scenarios, while the eccentricity distribution is broader and shifted towards higher values for the accretion model. These differences can be traced back to whether the bulk of the stars in each case is formed in situ or is accreted, and is robust to the peculiarities of each model. A simple test based on the eccentricity distribution of nearby thick-disc stars may thus help elucidate the dominant formation mechanism of the Galactic thick disc.
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The predicted high-eccentricity bump associated with accreted stars is not seen in the thick disk.
“However, some fraction did form before, as in the dry merger scenario, although the predicted bump at high eccentricity associated with the accreted stars (Sales et al. 2009, Di Matteo et al. 2011) is not seen in the thick disk.”
From Streams, Substructures, and the Early History of the Milky Way (2020) · cites this paper as Sales et al. 2009
The Results (p. 4) predict a high-eccentricity peak from disrupted-satellite stars in the disk-heating simulation. The paper does not report that this bump is absent from the observed thick disk; the Conclusions (p. 5) instead propose using future measurements of thick-disk eccentricities to test formation scenarios. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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Cites
SEGUE: A SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF 240,000 STARS WITH <i>g</i> = 14-20
Yanny, B., Rockosi, C., Newberg, H. J., Knapp, G. R., Adelman-McCarthy, J. K., Alcorn, B., Allam, S., Prieto, C. A., An, D., Anderson, K. S. J., et al. (2009) · The Astronomical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-6256/137/5/4377 · Cited by 1,162 · see citing works
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Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Sch¨ onrich R., Binney J., 2009b, ArXiv e-prints
- Smith M. C., Evans N. W., Belokurov V., Hewett P. C., Bramich D. M., Gilmore G., Irwin M. J., Vidrih S., Zucker D. B., 2009, ArXiv e-prints
- Villalobos ´ A., 2009, PhD thesis, University of Groningen
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Streams, Substructures, and the Early History of the Milky Way
Helmi, A. (2020) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-032620-021917 · Cited by 407 · see citing works
Self-citationGalactic Stellar Populations in the Era of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Other Large Surveys
Ivezić, Ž., Beers, T. C., & Jurić, M. (2012) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081811-125504 · Cited by 136 · see citing works
- Authors
- Sales, L. V., Helmi, A., Abadi, M. G., Brook, C. B., Gómez, F. A., Roškar, R., Debattista, V. P., House, E., Steinmetz, M., & Villalobos, Á.
- Affiliations
- University of Groningen (NL)
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (AR)
- University of Lancashire (GB)
- University of Washington (US)
- Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (DE)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-11-01
- Volume
- 400
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- L61-L65
- ISSN
- 1745-3925 (ISSN-L)
- 1745-3933
- OpenAlex
- W2099299102
- Cited by
- 98
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2025: 5 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 11 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 6.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- CLOK (University of Central Lancashire) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0551164)
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/F002432/1)
- Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara (PHY05-51164)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
- Keywords
- Galactic thick disc, orbital eccentricity, satellite accretion, minor mergers, radial migration, gas-rich mergers, disk heating, in situ star formation, eccentricity distribution, Milky Way
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