Leo T Dissected with the MUSE-Faint Survey

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Vaz, Daniel, Brinchmann, Jarle, Collaboration, The MUSE
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Vaz, Daniel
Brinchmann, Jarle
Collaboration, The MUSE
author_facet Vaz, Daniel
Brinchmann, Jarle
Collaboration, The MUSE
contents Leo T is the lowest mass galaxy known to contain neutral gas and to show signs of recent star formation, which makes it a valuable laboratory for studying the nature of gas and star formation at the limits of where galaxies are found to have rejuvenating episodes of star formation. Here we discuss a novel study of Leo T that uses data from the MUSE integral field spectrograph and photometric data from HST. The high sensitivity of MUSE allowed us to increase the number of Leo T stars observed spectroscopically from 19 to 75. We studied the age and metallicity of these stars and identified two populations, all consistent with similar metallicity of [Fe/H] $\sim$ -1.5 dex, suggesting that a large fraction of metals were ejected. Within the young population, we discovered three emission line Be stars, supporting the conclusion that rapidly rotating massive stars are common in metal-poor environments. We find differences in the dynamics of young and old stars, with the young population having a velocity dispersion consistent with the kinematics of the cold component of the neutral gas. This finding directly links the recent star formation in Leo T with the cold component of the neutral gas.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_03188
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Leo T Dissected with the MUSE-Faint Survey
Vaz, Daniel
Brinchmann, Jarle
Collaboration, The MUSE
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Leo T is the lowest mass galaxy known to contain neutral gas and to show signs of recent star formation, which makes it a valuable laboratory for studying the nature of gas and star formation at the limits of where galaxies are found to have rejuvenating episodes of star formation. Here we discuss a novel study of Leo T that uses data from the MUSE integral field spectrograph and photometric data from HST. The high sensitivity of MUSE allowed us to increase the number of Leo T stars observed spectroscopically from 19 to 75. We studied the age and metallicity of these stars and identified two populations, all consistent with similar metallicity of [Fe/H] $\sim$ -1.5 dex, suggesting that a large fraction of metals were ejected. Within the young population, we discovered three emission line Be stars, supporting the conclusion that rapidly rotating massive stars are common in metal-poor environments. We find differences in the dynamics of young and old stars, with the young population having a velocity dispersion consistent with the kinematics of the cold component of the neutral gas. This finding directly links the recent star formation in Leo T with the cold component of the neutral gas.
title Leo T Dissected with the MUSE-Faint Survey
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.03188