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The Chemical Evolution of Milky Way Satellite Galaxies from Keck Spectroscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2015

Evan N. Kirby
Evan N. Kirby*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of California, 4129 Reines Hall, Irvine, CA 92697, USA email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The primary data product of a recent Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopic campaign of eight Milky Way dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellite galaxies is a catalog of nearly 3000 red giants with spectral synthesis-based abundance measurements of Fe and the α elements Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti. The dSph metallicity distributions show that the histories of the less luminous dSphs were marked by massive amounts of metal loss. The [α/Fe] distributions reveal that the early star formation histories (at a lookback time of >12 Gyr) of most dSphs were very similar and that Type Ia supernova ejecta contributed to the abundances of all but the most metal-poor ([Fe/H] < −2.5) stars. This large data set allows inferences of past outflows from the dSphs in order to determine their contribution to the metal content of the intergalactic medium.

Keywords

galaxies: dwarfgalaxies: abundancesgalaxies: evolutiongalaxies: stellar contentintergalactic mediumstars: abundances
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 10 , Highlights H16: Highlights of Astronomy , August 2012 , pp. 278 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2015 

References

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