The Two-Infall Model Revisited: Constraints on Milky Way Bulge Assembly from >30,000 Galactic Chemical Evolution Models and Machine Learning

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Autori principali: Miller, Niall, Joyce, Meridith, Johnson, Christian I., Tayar, Jamie, Trueman, Thomas, Rich, R Michael
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Miller, Niall
Joyce, Meridith
Johnson, Christian I.
Tayar, Jamie
Trueman, Thomas
Rich, R Michael
author_facet Miller, Niall
Joyce, Meridith
Johnson, Christian I.
Tayar, Jamie
Trueman, Thomas
Rich, R Michael
contents We constrain the formation history of the Milky Way bulge using a two-infall Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE) framework implemented in the OMEGA++ code. We recover a best-fit scenario in which the bulge forms through an early, rapid starburst (t1 ~ 0.1Gyr, tau1 ~ 0.09Gyr, star-formation efficiency (SFE) ~ 3Gyr^-1 followed by a delayed, lower mass second infall (t2 ~ 5.1Gyr, tau2 ~ 1.7Gyr, sigma2 ~ 0.69). Our model adopts mass- and metallicity-dependent nucleosynthetic yields from modern stellar grids and explores a wide GCE parameter space in infall timing, star formation efficiency, mass partitioning, IMF upper mass, and SN Ia normalization, optimized via a hybrid genetic algorithm with MCMC refinement. The later infall features a reduced star formation efficiency (Delta SFE ~ 0.72), reproducing the metal-rich peak of the bulge metallicity distribution function (MDF) and the decline in [alpha/Fe] at high [Fe/H]. Our model naturally favors the Joyce et al. (2023) age -- metallicity relation over the ages in Bensby et al. (2017). Degeneracy and principal component analysis show that the infall history, SFE, and mass partitioning are strongly covariant -- the bulge's observed MDF, abundance trends, and age distribution constrain only their combinations, not each parameter independently. The results support a composite bulge origin -- a classical collapse builds the majority of the mass, while a younger component is required to match the late stage enrichment.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_08090
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Two-Infall Model Revisited: Constraints on Milky Way Bulge Assembly from >30,000 Galactic Chemical Evolution Models and Machine Learning
Miller, Niall
Joyce, Meridith
Johnson, Christian I.
Tayar, Jamie
Trueman, Thomas
Rich, R Michael
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
We constrain the formation history of the Milky Way bulge using a two-infall Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE) framework implemented in the OMEGA++ code. We recover a best-fit scenario in which the bulge forms through an early, rapid starburst (t1 ~ 0.1Gyr, tau1 ~ 0.09Gyr, star-formation efficiency (SFE) ~ 3Gyr^-1 followed by a delayed, lower mass second infall (t2 ~ 5.1Gyr, tau2 ~ 1.7Gyr, sigma2 ~ 0.69). Our model adopts mass- and metallicity-dependent nucleosynthetic yields from modern stellar grids and explores a wide GCE parameter space in infall timing, star formation efficiency, mass partitioning, IMF upper mass, and SN Ia normalization, optimized via a hybrid genetic algorithm with MCMC refinement. The later infall features a reduced star formation efficiency (Delta SFE ~ 0.72), reproducing the metal-rich peak of the bulge metallicity distribution function (MDF) and the decline in [alpha/Fe] at high [Fe/H]. Our model naturally favors the Joyce et al. (2023) age -- metallicity relation over the ages in Bensby et al. (2017). Degeneracy and principal component analysis show that the infall history, SFE, and mass partitioning are strongly covariant -- the bulge's observed MDF, abundance trends, and age distribution constrain only their combinations, not each parameter independently. The results support a composite bulge origin -- a classical collapse builds the majority of the mass, while a younger component is required to match the late stage enrichment.
title The Two-Infall Model Revisited: Constraints on Milky Way Bulge Assembly from >30,000 Galactic Chemical Evolution Models and Machine Learning
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08090