The Chemical Diversity of the Metal-Poor Milky Way

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Buckley, Nicole, Das, Payel, Jofré, Paula, Yates, Robert M., Hawkins, Keith
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Buckley, Nicole
Das, Payel
Jofré, Paula
Yates, Robert M.
Hawkins, Keith
author_facet Buckley, Nicole
Das, Payel
Jofré, Paula
Yates, Robert M.
Hawkins, Keith
contents We present a detailed study of the chemical diversity of the metal-poor Milky Way (MW) using data from the GALAH DR3 survey. Considering 17 chemical abundances relative to iron ([X/Fe]) for 9,923 stars, we employ Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Extreme Deconvolution (XD) to identify 10 distinct stellar groups. This approach, free from chemical or dynamical cuts, reveals known populations, including the accreted halo, thick disc, thin disc, and in-situ halo. The thick disc is characterised by multiple substructures, suggesting it comprises stars formed in diverse environments. Our findings highlight the limited discriminatory power of magnesium in separating accreted and disc stars. Elements such as Ba, Al, Cu, and Sc are critical in distinguishing disc from accreted stars, while Ba, Y, Eu and Zn differentiate disc and accreted stars from the in-situ halo. This study demonstrates the potential power of combining a latent space representation of the data (PCA) with a clustering algorithm (XD) in Galactic archaeology, in providing new insights into the galaxy's assembly and evolutionary history.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_18823
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Chemical Diversity of the Metal-Poor Milky Way
Buckley, Nicole
Das, Payel
Jofré, Paula
Yates, Robert M.
Hawkins, Keith
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We present a detailed study of the chemical diversity of the metal-poor Milky Way (MW) using data from the GALAH DR3 survey. Considering 17 chemical abundances relative to iron ([X/Fe]) for 9,923 stars, we employ Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Extreme Deconvolution (XD) to identify 10 distinct stellar groups. This approach, free from chemical or dynamical cuts, reveals known populations, including the accreted halo, thick disc, thin disc, and in-situ halo. The thick disc is characterised by multiple substructures, suggesting it comprises stars formed in diverse environments. Our findings highlight the limited discriminatory power of magnesium in separating accreted and disc stars. Elements such as Ba, Al, Cu, and Sc are critical in distinguishing disc from accreted stars, while Ba, Y, Eu and Zn differentiate disc and accreted stars from the in-situ halo. This study demonstrates the potential power of combining a latent space representation of the data (PCA) with a clustering algorithm (XD) in Galactic archaeology, in providing new insights into the galaxy's assembly and evolutionary history.
title The Chemical Diversity of the Metal-Poor Milky Way
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.18823