Search

We analyse high-resolution ESPaDOnS/CFHT spectra of 20 very metal-poor stars ([Fe/H]~$<-2.0$) in the solar neighbourhood (within $\sim2$ kpc) selected to be on planar orbits (with a maximum height of $\lesssim4$ kpc). Targets include 11 prograde and 9 retrograde stars, spanning a wide range of eccentricities ($0.20-0.95$). Their chemical abundances are consistent with those observed in the Galactic halo but show a smaller spread, with no notable difference between progrades and retrogrades. This suggests a common chemical evolution and likely a shared formation site (except for one star). In this case, chemical evolution models indicate that the formation site would have had a baryonic mass of $\sim1.4\times10^9\msun$, similar to classical dwarf galaxies. High-energy supernovae and hypernovae are needed to reproduce the [X/Fe] up to the Fe-peak, while fast-rotating massive stars and neutron star merger events explain the [X/Fe] of the neutron-capture elements. The absence of Type Ia supernova signatures suggests a star formation duration of $\lesssim1$~Gyr. Cosmological zoom-in simulations support the scenario that an in-plane infall of a single system could disperse stars over a wide range of angular momenta during the early Galactic assembly. We propose that these stars originated in a proto-Galactic building block, which we name Loki. Less likely, if progrades and retrogrades formed in two different systems, their chemical evolution must have been very similar, with a combined baryonic mass twice that of a single system. Forthcoming surveys will provide a large and homogeneous dataset to investigate whether Loki is associated with any of the known detected structures. A comparison (primarily [$\alpha$/Fe]) with other VMPs moving in planar orbits suggests multiple systems contributed to the Galactic planar population, presenting some differences in their kinematical parameters., Comment: REference list updated; discussion on GSE updated

Observations with FAST recently detected HI 21-cm emission near M94, revealing an intriguing object, Cloud-9, without an optical counterpart. Subsequent analysis suggests Cloud-9 is consistent with a gas-rich ($M_{\rm HI} \approx 10^{6} \ M_{\odot}$), starless dark matter (DM) halo of mass $M_{200} \approx 5 \times 10^{9} \ M_{\odot}$. Using VLA in D-array configuration, we present interferometric observations of Cloud-9 revealing it as a dynamically cold ($W_{50} \approx 12 \rm \ km \ s^{-1}$), non-rotating, and spatially-asymmetric system, exhibiting gas compression on one side and a tail-like structure towards the other, features likely originating from ram pressure. Our observations suggest Cloud-9 is consistent with a starless $\Lambda$CDM dark matter halo if the gas is largely isothermal. If interpreted as a faint dwarf, Cloud-9 is similar to Leo T, a nearby gas-rich galaxy that would fall below current optical detection limits at Cloud-9's distance ($d\approx 5 \rm \ Mpc$). Further observations with HST reaching magnitudes $m_{g} \approx 30$ would help identify such a galaxy or dramatically lower current limits to its stellar mass ($M_{\rm gal} \lesssim 10^{5} \ M_{\odot}$). Cloud-9 thus stands as the firmest starless DM halo candidate to date or the faintest galaxy known at its distance., Comment: Submitted to ApJ

We aim to constrain the chemo-dynamical properties of the Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf galaxy using carbon abundances. Our sample from the \textit{Pristine} Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) includes $\sim 350$ metal-poor ([Fe/H]~$<-1.5$) stars in the main body of Sgr with good quality spectroscopic observations. Our metal-poor Sgr population has a larger velocity dispersion than metal-rich Sgr from the literature, which could be explained by outside-in star formation, extreme Galactic tidal perturbations and/or the presence of a metal-rich disc/bar $+$ a metal-poor halo. The average carbon abundance [C/Fe] in Sgr is similar to that of other classical dwarf galaxies (DGs) and consistently lower than in the Milky Way by $\sim0.2-0.3$~dex at low metallicity. The interstellar medium in DGs, including Sgr, may have retained yields from more energetic Population~III~and~II supernovae (SNe), thereby reducing the average [C/Fe]. Additionally, SNe~Ia, producing more Fe than C, would start to contribute at lower metallicity in DGs/Sgr than in the Galaxy. The presence of a [C/Fe] gradient for Sgr stars with [Fe/H]~$\gtrsim-2.0$ ($\sim 6.8\times 10^{-4}\ \rm{dex \ arcmin^{-1}}$) suggests that SNe~Ia contributed in the system at those metallicities, especially in its inner regions. There is a low frequency of carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars in our Sgr sample. At higher metallicity/carbon abundance (mostly CEMP-s) this may be due to photometric selection effects, but those are less likely to affect CEMP-no stars. We propose that, given the lower average [C/Fe] in DGs, using the same CEMP definition ([C/Fe]~$>+0.7$) as in the Galaxy under-predicts the number of CEMP stars in DGs, and for Sgr a cut at [C/Fe]$~\sim +0.35$ may be more appropriate, which brings the frequency of CEMP stars in agreement with that in the Galaxy., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. The abstract in the metadata is a shorter version than the actual one

We study the fraction of the intra-cluster light (ICL) formed in-situ in the three most massive clusters of the TNG50 simulation, with virial masses $\sim 10^{14}$ M$_{\odot}$. We find that a significant fraction of ICL stars ($8\%$-$28\%$) are born in-situ. This amounts to a total stellar mass comparable to the central galaxy itself. Contrary to simple expectations, only a sub-dominant fraction of these in-situ ICL stars are born in the central regions and later re-distributed to more energetic orbits during mergers. Instead, many in-situ ICL stars form directly hundreds of kiloparsecs away from the central galaxy, in clouds condensing out of the circum-cluster medium. The simulations predict a present-date diffuse star formation rate of $\sim$1 $\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$/yr, with higher rates at higher redshifts. The diffuse star forming component of the ICL is filamentary in nature, extends for hundreds of kiloparsecs and traces the distribution of neutral gas in the cluster host halo. We discuss briefly how numerical details of the baryonic treatment in the simulation may play a role in this result and conclude that a sensitivity of $1.6 \times 10^{-19} - 2.6 \times 10^{-18}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ arcsec$^{-2}$ in H$_\alpha$ flux (beyond current observational capabilities) would be necessary to detect this diffuse star-forming component in galaxy clusters., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures - comments are welcome

A fundamental prediction of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) cosmology is the centrally divergent cuspy density profile of dark matter haloes. Density cusps render CDM haloes resilient to tides, and protect dwarf galaxies embedded in them from full tidal disruption. The hierarchical assembly history of the Milky Way may therefore give rise to a population of micro galaxies; i.e., heavily stripped remnants of early accreted satellites, which may reach arbitrarily low luminosity. Assuming that the progenitor systems are dark matter dominated, we use an empirical formalism for tidal stripping to predict the evolution of the luminosity, size, and velocity dispersion of such remnants, tracing their tidal evolution across multiple orders of magnitude in mass and size. The evolutionary tracks depend sensitively on the progenitor distribution of stellar binding energies. We explore three cases that likely bracket most realistic models of dwarf galaxies: one where the energy distribution of the most tightly bound stars follows that of the dark matter, and two where stars are defined by either an exponential density or surface brightness profile. The tidal evolution in the size-velocity dispersion plane is quite similar for these three models, although their remnants may differ widely in luminosity. Micro galaxies are therefore best distinguished from globular clusters by the presence of dark matter; either directly, by measuring their velocity dispersion, or indirectly, by examining their tidal resilience. Our work highlights the need for further theoretical and observational constraints on the stellar energy distribution in dwarf galaxies., Comment: updated to match accepted version

The recently discovered stellar system Ursa Major III/UNIONS 1 (UMa3/U1) is the faintest known Milky Way satellite to date. With a stellar mass of $16^{+6}_{-5}\,\rm M_\odot$ and a half-light radius of $3\pm1$pc, it is either the darkest galaxy ever discovered or the faintest self-gravitating star cluster known to orbit the Galaxy. Its line-of-sight velocity dispersion suggests the presence of dark matter, although current measurements are inconclusive because of the unknown contribution to the dispersion of potential binary stars. We use $N$-body simulations to show that, if self-gravitating, the system could not survive in the Milky Way tidal field for much longer than a single orbit (roughly 0.4Gyr), which strongly suggests that the system is stabilized by the presence of large amounts of dark matter. If UMa3/U1 formed at the center of a ~$10^9\rm M_\odot$ cuspy LCDM halo, its velocity dispersion would be predicted to be of order ~1km/s. This is roughly consistent with the current estimate, which, neglecting binaries, places $\sigma_{\rm los}$ in the range 1 to 4km/s. Because of its dense cusp, such a halo should be able to survive the Milky Way tidal field, keeping UMa3/U1 relatively unscathed until the present time. This implies that UMa3/U1 is plausibly the faintest and densest dwarf galaxy satellite of the Milky Way, with important implications for alternative dark matter models and for the minimum halo mass threshold for luminous galaxy formation in the LCDM cosmology. Our results call for multi-epoch high-resolution spectroscopic follow-up to confirm the dark matter content of this extraordinary system., Comment: updated to match accepted version

Pristine_183.6849+04.8619 (P1836849) is an extremely metal-poor ([Fe/H]$=-3.3\pm0.1$) star on a prograde orbit confined to the Galactic disk. Such stars are rare and may have their origins in protogalactic fragments that formed the early Milky Way, in low mass satellites accreted later, or forming in situ in the Galactic plane. Here we present a chemo-dynamical analysis of the spectral features between $3700-11000$\r{A} from a high-resolution spectrum taken during Science Verification of the new Gemini High-resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST). Spectral features for many chemical elements are analysed (Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Sc, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni), and valuable upper limits are determined for others (C, Na, Sr, Ba). This main sequence star exhibits several rare chemical signatures, including (i) extremely low metallicity for a star in the Galactic disk, (ii) very low abundances of the light $\alpha$-elements (Na, Mg, Si) compared to other metal-poor stars, and (iii) unusually large abundances of Cr and Mn, where [Cr, Mn/Fe]$_{\rm NLTE}>+0.5$. A comparison to theoretical yields from supernova models suggests that two low mass Population III objects (one 10 M$_\odot$ supernova and one 17 M$_\odot$ hypernova) can reproduce the abundance pattern well (reduced $\chi^2<1$). When this star is compared to other extremely metal-poor stars on quasi-circular, prograde planar orbits, differences in both chemistry and kinematics imply there is little evidence for a common origin. The unique chemistry of P1836849 is discussed in terms of the earliest stages in the formation of the Milky Way., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 6 tables. Accepted by MNRAS November 22; Revisions include comparisons to more EMP stars, results unchanged

The Local Group (LG) of galaxies is dominated by the M31 and Milky Way (MW) pair, a configuration which suggests that the mass distribution in the LG and its surroundings should be highly anisotropic. We use the APOSTLE cosmological simulations to examine how this anisotropy manifests on the spatial distribution and kinematics of dwarf galaxies out to a distance of 3 Mpc from the MW. The simulations indicate a clear preference for dwarfs to be located close to the axis defined by the MW-M31 direction, even for dwarfs in the LG periphery (LGP; i.e., those at distances 1.25, varies with angular distance to M31, peaking in the anti-M31 direction and reaching a minimum behind M31. The combined M31-MW mass decelerates the local expansion; the LG "turnaround radius" (where =0) in APOSTLE is located at r ~ 1.25 Mpc from the LG barycentre and the pure Hubble flow (where ~ H_0*d) is not reached out to at least 3 Mpc. The predicted flow is very cold, with a barycentric dispersion of <40 km/s. A comparison of these predicted features with existing observations gives mixed results. There is clear observational evidence for an angular anisotropy in V_{rad} around the LGP, but little evidence for a preferred spatial distribution of LGP dwarfs along the MW-M31 axis. The observed local Hubble flow is also peculiar. Although the coldness of the flow is consistent with the simulations, it is significantly less decelerated: relative to the MW, on average, all galaxies beyond d~1.25 Mpc seem to be on a pure Hubble flow. We argue that these oddities may result from incompleteness and inhomogeneous sky coverage, but a full explanation may need to await the completion of deep all-sky surveys able to fill the gaps in our current inventory of nearby dwarfs., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to MNRAS. [Fig. 1 is a video that will play on compatible software (e.g. Okular and Adobe Acrobat, but not Preview or browser viewers).]

The velocity dispersion of globular clusters (GCs) around ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the Virgo cluster spans a wide range, including cases where GC kinematics suggest halos as massive as (or even more massive than) that of the Milky Way around these faint dwarfs. We analyze the catalogs of GCs derived in post-processing from the TNG50 cosmological simulation to study the GC system kinematics and abundance of simulated UDGs in galaxy groups and clusters. UDGs in this simulation reside exclusively in dwarf-mass halos with $M_{200} \sim 10^{11}$ M$_{\odot}$. When considering only GCs gravitationally bound to simulated UDGs, we find GCs properties that overlap well with several observational measurements for UDGs. In particular, no bias towards overly massive halos is inferred from the study of bound GCs, confirming that GCs are good tracers of UDG halo mass. However, we find that contamination by intra-cluster GCs may, in some cases, substantially increase velocity dispersion estimates when performing projected mock observations of our sample. We caution that targets with less than $10$ GC tracers are particularly prone to severe uncertainties.Measuring the stellar kinematics of the host galaxy should help confirm the unusually massive halos suggested by GC kinematics around some UDGs, Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Observations with the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope have revealed the presence of a marginally-resolved source of 21 cm emission from a location $\sim50'$ from the M94 galaxy, without a stellar counterpart down to the surface brightness limit of the DESI Imaging Legacy Survey ($\sim29.15$ mag arcsec$^{-2}$ in the $g$ band). The system (hereafter Cloud-9) has round column density isocontours and a line width consistent with thermal broadening from gas at $T\sim2\times10^4$ $K$. These properties are unlike those of previously detected dark HI clouds and similar to the expected properties of REionization-Limited-HI Cloud (RELHICs), namely, starless dark matter (DM) halos filled with gas in hydrostatic equilibrium and in thermal equilibrium with the cosmic ultraviolet background. At the distance of M94, $d\sim4.7$ Mpc, we find that Cloud-9 is consistent with being a RELHIC inhabiting a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) DM halo of mass, $M_{200}\sim5\times10^{9}$ $M_{\odot}$, and concentration, $c_{\rm NFW}\sim13$. Although the agreement between the model and observations is good, Cloud-9 appears to be slightly, but systematically, more extended than expected for $\Lambda$CDM RELHICs. This may imply either that Cloud-9 is much closer than implied by its recessional velocity, $v_{\rm CL9}\sim300$ km s$^{-1}$, or that its halo density profile is flatter than NFW, with a DM mass deficit greater than a factor of $10$ at radii $r\lesssim1$ kpc. Further observations may aid in constraining these scenarios better and help elucidate whether Cloud-9 is the first ever observed RELHIC, a cornerstone prediction of the $\Lambda$CDM model on the smallest scales., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

We use the APOSTLE suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the Local Group to examine the high speed tail of the local dark matter velocity distribution in simulated Milky Way analogues. The velocity distribution in the Solar neighborhood is well approximated by a generalized Maxwellian distribution sharply truncated at a well-defined maximum ``escape" speed. The truncated generalized Maxwellian distribution accurately models the local dark matter velocity distribution of all our Milky Way analogues, with no evidence for any separate extragalactic high-speed components. The local maximum speed is well approximated by the terminal velocity expected for particles able to reach the Solar neighborhood in a Hubble time from the farthest confines of the Local Group. This timing constraint means that the local dark matter velocity distribution is unlikely to contain any high-speed particles contributed by the Virgo Supercluster ``envelope", as argued in recent works. Particles in the Solar neighborhood with speeds close to the local maximum speed can reach well outside the virial radius of the Galaxy, and, in that sense, belong to the Local Group envelope posited in earlier work. The local manifestation of such envelope is thus not a distinct high-speed component, but rather simply the high-speed tail of the truncated Maxwellian distribution., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. To be submitted to JCAP

This study focuses on Pristine$\_180956.78$$-$$294759.8$ (hereafter P180956, $[Fe/H] =-1.95\pm0.02$), a star selected from the Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS), and followed-up with the recently commissioned Gemini High-resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST) at the Gemini South telescope. The GHOST spectrograph's high efficiency in the blue spectral region ($3700-4800$~\AA) enables the detection of elemental tracers of early supernovae (\eg Al, Mn, Sr, Eu). The star exhibits chemical signatures resembling those found in ultra-faint dwarf systems, characterised by very low abundances of neutron-capture elements (Sr, Ba, Eu), which are uncommon among stars in the Milky Way halo. Our analysis suggests that P180956 bears the chemical imprints of a small number (2 or 4) of low-mass hypernovae ($\sim10-15 M_{\odot}$), which are needed to mostly reproduce the abundance pattern of the light-elements (\eg [Si, Ti/Mg, Ca] $\sim0.6$), and one fast-rotating intermediate-mass supernova ($\sim300\kms$, $\sim80-120 M_{\odot}$), which is the main channel contributing to the high [Sr/Ba] ($\sim +1.2$). The small pericentric ($\sim0.7$ kpc) and apocentric ($\sim13$ kpc) distances and its orbit confined to the plane ($\lesssim 2$ kpc), indicate that this star was likely accreted during the early Galactic assembly phase. Its chemo-dynamical properties suggest that P180956 formed in a system similar to an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy accreted either alone, as one of the low-mass building blocks of the proto-Galaxy, or as a satellite of Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus. The combination of Gemini's large aperture with GHOST's high efficiency and broad spectral coverage makes this new spectrograph one of the leading instruments for near-field cosmology investigations., Comment: Accepted version, minor editing. New figure showing Sr and Ba lines. Section 4.7 revised

The formation of "stellar halos" in dwarf galaxies have been discussed in terms of early mergers or Galactic tides, although fluctuations in the gravitational potential due to stellar feedback is also a possible candidate mechanism. A Bayesian algorithm is used to find new candidate members in the extreme outskirts of the Sculptor dwarf galaxy. Precise metallicities and radial velocities for two distant stars are measured from their spectra taken with the Gemini South GMOS spectrograph. The radial velocity, proper motion and metallicity of these targets are consistent with Sculptor membership. As a result, the known boundary of the Sculptor dwarf extends now out to an elliptical distance of $\sim10$ half-light radii, which corresponds to a projected physical distance of $\sim3$ kpc. As reported in earlier work, the overall distribution of radial velocities and metallicities indicate the presence of a more spatially and kinematically dispersed metal-poor population that surrounds the more concentrated and colder metal-rich stars. Sculptor's density profile shows a "kink" in its logarithmic slope at a projected distance of $\sim25$ arcmin (620 pc), which we interpret as evidence that Galactic tides have helped to populate the distant outskirts of the dwarf. We discuss further ways to test and validate this tidal interpretation for the origin of these distant stars., Comment: Accepted for publication on MNRAS. Figure 1 now displays all the candidate members. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2301.13214

The arrangement of dwarf galaxies in a thin plane surrounding the Milky Way has been thought to contradict the prevailing cosmological model of cold dark matter in the Universe. New work suggests that this arrangement may just be a temporary alignment, bringing our galaxy back into agreement with theoretical expectations once the radial distribution of satellites is taken into account., Comment: Invited 'News and Views' contribution for Nature Astronomy on paper by Sawala et al. 2022 "The Milky Way's plane of satellites is consistent with {\Lambda}CDM"

Stellar candidates in the Ursa Minor (UMi) dwarf galaxy have been found using a new Bayesian algorithm applied to \textit{Gaia} EDR3 data. Five of these targets are located in the extreme outskirts of UMi, from $\sim5$ to 12 elliptical half-light radii (r$_h$), where r$_h$(UMi) $= 17.32 \pm 0.11$ arcmin, and have been observed with the GRACES high resolution spectrograph at the Gemini-Northern telescope. Precise radial velocities ($\sigma_{\rm{RV}} < 2$ km s$^{-1}$) and metallicities ($\sigma_{\rm{[Fe/H]}} < 0.2$ dex) confirm their memberships of UMi. Detailed analysis of the brightest and outermost star (Target~1, at $\sim12$ r$_h$), yields precision chemical abundances for the $\alpha$- (Mg, Ca, Ti), odd-Z (Na, K, Sc), Fe-peak (Fe, Ni, Cr), and neutron-capture (Ba) elements. With data from the literature and APOGEE DR17, we find the chemical patterns in UMi are consistent with an outside-in star formation history that includes yields from core collapse supernovae, asymptotic giant branch stars, and supernovae Ia. Evidence for a knee in the [$\alpha$/Fe] ratios near [Fe/H] $\sim-2.1$ indicates a low star formation efficiency similar to that in other dwarf galaxies. Detailed analysis of the surface number density profile shows evidence that UMi's outskirts have been populated by tidal effects, likely as a result of completing multiple orbits around the Galaxy., Comment: NEW DISCUSSION ON THE PRESENCE OF TIDES. Final version

The cuspy central density profiles of cold dark matter (CDM) haloes make them highly resilient to disruption by tides. Self-interactions between dark matter particles, or the cycling of baryons, may result in the formation of a constant-density core which would make haloes more susceptible to tidal disruption. We use N-body simulations to study the evolution of NFW-like "cored" subhaloes in the tidal field of a massive host, and identify the criteria and timescales for full tidal disruption. Our results imply that the survival of Milky Way satellites places constraints on the sizes of dark matter cores. Indeed, we find that no subhaloes with cores larger than 1 per cent of their initial NFW scale radius can survive for a Hubble time on orbits with pericentres <10 kpc. A satellite like Tucana 3, with pericentre ~3.5 kpc, must have a core size smaller than ~2 pc to survive just three orbital periods on its current orbit. The core sizes expected in self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) models with a velocity-independent cross section of 1 cm^2/g seem incompatible with ultra-faint satellites with small pericentric radii, such as Tuc 3, Seg 1, Seg 2, Ret 2, Tri 2, and Wil 1, as these should have fully disrupted if accreted on to the Milky Way >10 Gyr ago. These results suggest that many satellites have vanishingly small core sizes, consistent with CDM cusps. The discovery of further Milky Way satellites on orbits with small pericentric radii would strengthen these conclusions and allow for stricter upper limits on the core sizes., Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, minor edits to match accepted version

The investigation of the metal-poor tail in the Galactic bulge provides unique information on the early Milky Way assembly and evolution. A chemo-dynamical analysis of 17 very metal-poor stars (VMP, [Fe/H] $<-2.0$) selected from the Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey was carried out based on Gemini/GRACES spectra. The chemistry suggests that the majority of our stars are very similar to metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo. Orbits calculated from {\it Gaia} EDR3 imply these stars are brought into the bulge during the earliest Galactic assembly. Most of our stars have large [Na,Ca/Mg] abundances, and thus show little evidence of enrichment by pair-instability supernovae. Two of our stars (P171457, P184700) have chemical abundances compatible with second-generation globular cluster stars, suggestive of the presence of ancient and now dissolved globular clusters in the inner Galaxy. One of them (P171457) is extremely metal-poor ([Fe/H] $<-3.0$) and well below the metallicity floor of globular clusters, which supports the growing evidence for the existence of lower-metallicity globular clusters in the early Universe. A third star (P180956, [Fe/H] $\sim-2$) has low [Na,Ca/Mg] and very low [Ba/Fe] for its metallicity, which are consistent with formation in a system polluted by only one or a few low-mass supernovae. Interestingly, its orbit is confined to the Galactic plane, like other very metal-poor stars found in the literature, which have been associated with the earliest building blocks of the Milky Way., Comment: 22 pages + appendix, 14 Figures + 3 in the appendix, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We use the APOSTLE Local Group (LG) cosmological hydro-simulations to examine the properties of "backsplash" galaxies, i.e, dwarfs which were within the virial boundaries of the Milky Way (MW) or M31 in the past, but are today outside their virial radius ($r_{200}$). More than half of all dwarfs between $1-2\,r_{200}$ of each primary are backsplash. More distant backsplash systems, i.e., those reaching distances well beyond $2\,r_{200}$, are typically close to apocentre of nearly radial orbits, and, therefore, essentially at rest relative to their primary. We use this result to investigate which LG dwarfs beyond $\sim500$ kpc of either primary could be a distant backsplash satellite of MW or M31. Tucana dSph, one of the few known quiescent LG field dwarfs, at $d_{\rm M31}\approx1350$ kpc and $d_{\rm MW}\approx880$ kpc, is a promising candidate. Tucana's radial velocity is consistent with being at rest relative to M31. Further, Tucana is located close to M33's orbital plane around M31, and simple orbit integrations indicate that Tucana may have been ejected during an early pericentric passage of M33 $\sim11$ Gyr ago, a timing which approximately coincides with Tucana's last episode of star formation. We suggest that Tucana may have been an early-infalling satellite of M31 or M33, providing a compelling explanation for its puzzling lack of gas and ongoing star formation despite its isolated nature. In this scenario, M33 should have completed some orbits around M31, a result that may help to explain the relative dearth of M33 satellite-candidates identified so far., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We study the impact of the dark matter velocity distribution modelling on signals from velocity-dependent dark matter annihilation in Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Using the high resolution APOSTLE simulations, we identify analogues corresponding to Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and from these directly determine the dark matter pair-wise relative velocity distribution, and compare to best-fitting Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution models. For three velocity-dependent annihilation models, p-wave, d-wave, and the Sommerfeld model, we quantify the errors introduced when using the Maxwell-Boltzmann parameterization. We extract a simple power-law relation between the maximum circular velocity of the dwarf spheroidal analogue and the peak speed of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. We show that this relation can be used to accurately calculate the dark matter relative velocity distribution, and find that it allows us to estimate the dark matter annihilation signal without the need to directly calculate the relative velocity distribution for each galaxy. The scatter in the J-factors calculated from the analogues dominates the uncertainty obtained when compared to the J-factor as determined from the observational data for each dwarf spheroidal, with the largest scatter from d-wave models and the smallest from Sommerfeld models., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables

We use $\Lambda$CDM cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to explore the kinematics of gaseous discs in late-type dwarf galaxies. We create high-resolution 21-cm 'observations' of simulated dwarfs produced in two variations of the EAGLE galaxy formation model: one where supernova-driven gas flows redistribute dark matter and form constant-density central 'cores', and another where the central 'cusps' survive intact. We 'observe' each galaxy along multiple sight lines and derive a rotation curve for each observation using a conventional tilted-ring approach to model the gas kinematics. We find that the modelling process introduces systematic discrepancies between the recovered rotation curve and the actual circular velocity curve driven primarily by (i) non-circular gas orbits within the discs; (ii) the finite thickness of gaseous discs, which leads to overlap of different radii in projection; and (iii) departures from dynamical equilibrium. Dwarfs with dark matter cusps often appear to have a core, whilst the inverse error is less common. These effects naturally reproduce an observed trend which other models struggle to explain: late-type dwarfs with more steeply-rising rotation curves appear to be dark matter-dominated in the inner regions, whereas the opposite seems to hold in galaxies with core-like rotation curves. We conclude that if similar effects affect the rotation curves of observed dwarfs, a late-type dwarf population in which all galaxies have sizeable dark matter cores is most likely incompatible with current measurements., Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Appendices included as ancillary file

The recently discovered C-19 stellar stream is a collection of kinematically associated metal-poor stars in the halo of the Milky Way lacking an obvious progenitor. The stream spans an arc of ~15 degrees in the sky, and orbit-fitting suggests an apocentric distance of ~20 kpc and a pericentre of ~10 kpc. The narrow metallicity dispersion of stars with available spectra, together with light element abundance variations, suggests a globular cluster (GC) origin. The observed metallicity ([Fe/H] ~ -3.4), however, is much lower than that of any known GC. In addition, the width and velocity dispersion of the stream are similar to those expected from disrupting dwarf galaxies, and substantially larger than the tidal debris of GCs able to disrupt on C-19's orbit. We propose here an unconventional model where the C-19 progenitor is a dark matter-dominated stellar system with GC-like abundance patterns. We use N-body simulations to show that the tidal disruption of a ~100 pc King-model stellar component embedded in a ~20 km/s cuspy cold dark matter halo yields debris consistent with C-19's observed width and velocity dispersion. The stellar component of the progenitor is fully disrupted, and is spread over two distinct streams; one corresponding to C-19 and another possibly hiding behind the Galactic plane. If such companion stream were found, it would suggest that dark matter-dominated dwarfs may also develop GC-like enrichment patterns, a finding that would inform our theoretical understanding of the formation of multiple populations in GCs and dwarf galaxies alike., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures. minor edits to match accepted version

The C-19 stream is the most metal poor stellar system ever discovered, with a mean metallicity $[Fe/H] = -3.38\pm0.06$. Its low metallicity dispersion ($\sigma_{\rm [Fe/H]}$ $<$ 0.18 at the 95\% confidence level) as well as variations in sodium abundances strongly suggest a globular cluster origin. In this work, we use VLT/UVES spectra of seven C-19 stars to derive more precise velocity measurements for member stars, and to identify two new members with radial velocities and metallicities consistent with the stream's properties. One of these new member stars is located 30 $\deg$ away from the previously identified body of C-19, implying that the stream is significantly more extended than previously known and that more members likely await discovery. In the main part of C-19, we measure a radial velocity dispersion $\sigma_v$ = 6.2$^{+2.0}_{-1.4}$ km s$^{-1}$ from nine members, and a stream width of 0.56$\deg\pm0.08\deg$, equivalent to $\sim$158 pc at a heliocentric distance of 18 kpc. These confirm that C-19 is comparatively hotter, dynamically, than other known globular cluster streams and shares the properties of faint dwarf galaxy streams. On the other hand, the variations in the Na abundances of the three newly observed bright member stars, the variations in Mg and Al for two of them, and the normal Ba abundance of the one star where it can be measured provide further evidence for a globular cluster origin. The tension between the dynamical and chemical properties of C-19 suggests that its progenitor experienced a complex birth environment or disruption history., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted to MNRAS. The C-19 member list is published via https://github.com/zyuan-astro/C-19

Stellar ejecta gradually enrich the gas out of which subsequent stars form, making the least chemically enriched stellar systems direct fossils of structures formed in the early universe. Although a few hundred stars with metal content below one thousandth of the solar iron content are known in the Galaxy, none of them inhabit globular clusters, some of the oldest known stellar structures. These show metal content of at least ~0.2 percent of the solar metallicity ([Fe/H] > -2.7). This metallicity floor appears universal and it has been proposed that proto-galaxies that merge into the galaxies we observe today were simply not massive enough to form clusters that survived to the present day. Here, we report the discovery of a stellar stream, C-19, whose metallicity is less than 0.05 per cent the solar metallicity ([Fe/H]=-3.38 +/- 0.06 (stat.) +/- 0.20 (syst.)). The low metallicity dispersion and the chemical abundances of the C-19 stars show that this stream is the tidal remnant of the most metal-poor globular cluster ever discovered, and significantly below the purported metallicity floor: clusters with significantly lower metallicities than observed today existed in the past and contributed their stars to the Milky Way halo., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables. Nature, accepted

The unusually low velocity dispersion and large size of Crater II pose a challenge to our understanding of dwarf galaxies in the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) cosmogony. The low velocity dispersion suggests either a dark halo mass much lower than the minimum expected from hydrogen cooling limit arguments, or one that is in the late stages of extreme tidal stripping. The tidal interpretation has been favoured in recent work and is supported by the small pericentric distances consistent with available kinematic estimates. We use N-body simulations to examine this interpretation in detail, assuming a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile for Crater II's progenitor halo. Our main finding is that, although the low velocity dispersion can indeed result from the effect of tides, the large size of Crater II is inconsistent with this hypothesis. This is because galaxies stripped to match the observed velocity dispersion are also reduced to sizes much smaller than the observed half-light radius of Crater II. Unless its size has been substantially overestimated, reconciling this system with LCDM requires that either (i) it is not bound and near equilibrium (unlikely, given its crossing time is shorter than the time elapsed since pericentre), or that (ii) its progenitor halo deviates from the assumed NFW profile. The latter alternative may signal that baryons can affect the inner halo cusp even in extremely faint dwarfs or, more intriguingly, may signal effects associated with the intimate nature of the dark matter, such as finite self-interactions, or other such deviations from the canonical LCDM paradigm., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We use N-body simulations to model the tidal evolution of dark matter-dominated dwarf spheroidal galaxies embedded in cuspy Navarro-Frenk-White subhalos. Tides gradually peel off stars and dark matter from a subhalo, trimming it down according to their initial binding energy. This process strips preferentially particles with long orbital times, and comes to an end when the remaining bound particles have crossing times shorter than a fraction of the orbital time at pericentre. The properties of the final stellar remnant thus depend on the energy distribution of stars in the progenitor subhalo, which in turn depends on the initial density profile and radial segregation of the initial stellar component. The stellar component may actually be completely dispersed if its energy distribution does not extend all the way to the subhalo potential minimum, although a bound dark remnant may remain. These results imply that 'tidally-limited' galaxies, defined as systems whose stellar components have undergone substantial tidal mass loss, neither converge to a unique structure nor follow a single tidal track, as claimed in earlier work. On the other hand, tidally limited dwarfs do have characteristic sizes and velocity dispersions that trace directly the characteristic radius ($r_{max}$) and circular velocity ($V_{max}$) of the subhalo remnant. This result places strong upper limits on the size of satellites whose unusually low velocity dispersions are often ascribed to tidal effects. In particular, the large size of kinematically-cold 'feeble giant' satellites like Crater 2 or Antlia 2 cannot be explained as due to tidal effects alone in the Lambda Cold Dark Matter scenario., Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures. Edited to match accepted version

The abundance of the faintest galaxies provides insight into the nature of dark matter and the process of dwarf galaxy formation. In the LCDM scenario, low mass halos are so numerous that the efficiency of dwarf formation must decline sharply with decreasing halo mass in order to accommodate the relative scarcity of observed dwarfs and satellites in the Local Group. The nature of this decline contains important clues to the mechanisms regulating the onset of galaxy formation in the faintest systems. We explore here two possible models for the stellar mass ($M_*$)-halo mass ($M_{200}$) relation at the faint end, motivated by some of the latest LCDM cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. One model includes a sharp mass threshold below which no luminous galaxies form, as expected if galaxy formation proceeds only in systems above the Hydrogen-cooling limit. In the second model, $M_*$ scales as a steep power-law of $M_{200}$ with no explicit cutoff, as suggested by recent semianalytic work. Although both models predict satellite numbers around Milky Way-like galaxies consistent with current observations, they predict vastly different numbers of ultra-faint dwarfs and of satellites around isolated dwarf galaxies. Our results illustrate how the satellite mass function around dwarfs may be used to probe the $M_*$-$M_{200}$ relation at the faint end and to elucidate the mechanisms that determine which low-mass halos "light up" or remain dark in the LCDM scenario., Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. Accepted version for publication in MNRAS

We present a new spectroscopic study of the dwarf galaxy Bootes I (Boo I) with data from the Anglo-Australian Telescope and its AAOmega spectrograph together with the Two Degree Field multi-object system. We observed 36 high-probability Boo I stars selected using Gaia Early Data Release 3 proper motions and photometric metallicities from the Pristine survey. Out of those, 27 are found to be Boo I's stars, resulting in an excellent success rate of 75% at finding new members. Our analysis uses a new pipeline developed to estimate radial velocities and equivalent widths of the calcium triplet lines from Gaussian and Voigt line profile fits. The metallicities of 16 members are derived, including 3 extremely metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] < -3.0), which translates into a success rate of 25% at finding them with the combination of Pristine and Gaia. Using the large spatial extent of our new members that spans up to 4.1 half-light radii and spectroscopy from the literature, we find a systemic velocity gradient of 0.40 +/- 0.10 km/s/arcmin and a small but resolved metallicity gradient of -0.008 +/- 0.003 dex/arcmin. Finally, we show that Boo I is more elongated than previously thought with an ellipticity of epsilon = 0.68 +/- 0.15. Its velocity and metallicity gradients as well as its elongation suggest that Boo I may have been affected by tides, a result supported by direct dynamical modelling.

We evaluate the rotational velocity of stars observed by the Pristine survey towards the Galactic anticentre, spanning a wide range of metallicities from the extremely metal-poor regime ($\mathrm{[Fe/H]}<-3$) to nearly solar metallicity. In the Galactic anticentre direction, the rotational velocity ($V_{\phi}$) is similar to the tangential velocity in the galactic longitude direction ($V_{\ell}$). This allows us to estimate $V_{\phi}$ from Gaia early data-release 3 (Gaia EDR3) proper motions for stars without radial velocity measurements. This substantially increases the sample of stars in the outer disc with estimated rotational velocities. Our stellar sample towards the anticentre is dominated by a kinematical thin disc with a mean rotation of $\sim -220$ km $\mathrm{s}^{-1}$. However, our analysis reveals the presence of more stellar substructures. The most intriguing is a well populated extension of the kinematical thin disc down to $\mathrm{[Fe/H]} \sim -2$. A scarser fast rotating population reaching the extremely metal-poor regime, down to $\mathrm{[Fe/H]} \sim -3.5$ is also detected, but without statistical significance to unambiguously state whether this is the extremely metal-poor extension of the thin disc or the high rotating tail of hotter structures (like the thick disc or the halo). In addition, a more slowly rotating kinematical thick disc component is also required to explain the observed $V_{\ell}$ distribution at $\mathrm{[Fe/H]} > -1.5$. Furthermore, we detect signatures of a "heated disc", the so-called Splash, at metallicities higher than $\sim-1.5$. Finally, at $\mathrm{[Fe/H]} < -1.5$ our anticentre sample is dominated by a kinematical halo with a net prograde motion., Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We compare the star-forming properties of satellites around Milky Way (MW) analogs from the Stage~II release of the Satellites Around Galactic Analogs Survey (SAGA-II) to those from the APOSTLE and Auriga cosmological zoom-in simulation suites. We use archival GALEX UV imaging as a star-formation indicator for the SAGA-II sample and derive star-formation rates (SFRs) to compare with those from APOSTLE and Auriga. We compare our detection rates from the NUV and FUV bands to the SAGA-II H$\alpha$ detections and find that they are broadly consistent with over $85\%$ of observed satellites detected in all three tracers. We apply the same spatial selection criteria used around SAGA-II hosts to select satellites around the MW-like hosts in APOSTLE and Auriga. We find very good overall agreement in the derived SFRs for the star-forming satellites as well as the number of star-forming satellites per host in observed and simulated samples. However, the number and fraction of quenched satellites in the SAGA-II sample are significantly lower than those in APOSTLE and Auriga below a stellar mass of $M_*\sim10^{8}\,M_{\odot}$, even when the SAGA-II incompleteness and interloper corrections are included. This discrepancy is robust with respect to the resolution of the simulations and persists when alternative star-formation tracers are employed. We posit that this disagreement is not readily explained by vagaries in the observed or simulated samples considered here, suggesting a genuine discrepancy that may inform the physics of satellite populations around MW analogs., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters after minor changes to text

The most metal-deficient stars hold important clues about the early build-up and chemical evolution of the Milky Way, and carbon-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars are of special interest. However, little is known about CEMP stars in the Galactic bulge. In this paper, we use the large spectroscopic sample of metal-poor stars from the Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) to identify CEMP stars ([C/Fe] > +0.7) in the bulge region and to derive a CEMP fraction. We identify 96 new CEMP stars in the inner Galaxy, of which 62 are very metal-poor ([Fe/H] < -2.0); this is more than a ten-fold increase compared to the seven previously known bulge CEMP stars. The cumulative fraction of CEMP stars in PIGS is $42^{\,+14\,}_{\,-13} \%$ for stars with [Fe/H] < -3.0, and decreases to $16^{\,+3\,}_{\,-3} \%$ for [Fe/H] < -2.5 and $5.7^{\,+0.6\,}_{\,-0.5} \%$ for [Fe/H] < -2.0. The PIGS inner Galaxy CEMP fraction for [Fe/H] < -3.0 is consistent with the halo fraction found in the literature, but at higher metallicities the PIGS fraction is substantially lower. While this can partly be attributed to a photometric selection bias, such bias is unlikely to fully explain the low CEMP fraction at higher metallicities. Considering the typical carbon excesses and metallicity ranges for halo CEMP-s and CEMP-no stars, our results point to a possible deficiency of both CEMP-s and CEMP-no stars (especially the more metal-rich) in the inner Galaxy. The former is potentially related to a difference in the binary fraction, whereas the latter may be the result of a fast chemical enrichment in the early building blocks of the inner Galaxy., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The dark matter (DM) content of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy inferred from its kinematics is substantially lower than expected from LCDM cosmological simulations. We use N-body simulations to examine whether this may be the result of Galactic tides. We find that, despite improved proper motions from the Gaia mission, the pericentric distance of Fornax remains poorly constrained, mainly because its largest velocity component is roughly anti-parallel to the solar motion. Translating Fornax's proper motion into a Galactocentric velocity is thus sensitively dependent on Fornax's assumed distance: the observed distance uncertainty, $\pm 8\%$, implies pericentric distances that vary between $r_{\rm peri}\sim 50$ and $r_{\rm peri}\sim 150$ kpc. Our simulations show that for $r_{\rm peri}$ in the lower range of that estimate, a LCDM subhalo with maximum circular velocity $V_{\rm max}=40$ km s$^{-1}$ (or virial mass $M_{200}\approx 10^{10} M_\odot$, as expected from LCDM) would be tidally stripped to $V_{\rm max} \sim 23$ km s$^{-1}$ over $10$ Gyr. This would reduce the DM mass within the Fornax stellar half-mass radius to about half its initial value, bringing it into agreement with observations. Tidal stripping affects mainly Fornax's DM halo; its stellar component is affected little, losing less than $5\%$ of its initial mass in the process. We also explore the effect of Galactic tides on the dynamical friction decay times of Fornax's population of globular clusters (GC) and find little evidence for substantial changes, compared with models run in isolation. A population of GCs with initial orbital radii between $1$ and $2$ kpc is consistent with the present-day spatial distribution of Fornax GCs, despite assuming a cuspy halo. Neither the DM content nor the spatial distribution of GCs seem inconsistent with a simple model where Fornax inhabits a tidally-stripped cuspy cold DM halo., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We determine the dark matter pair-wise relative velocity distribution in a set of Milky Way-like halos in the Auriga and APOSTLE simulations. Focusing on the smooth halo component, the relative velocity distribution is well-described by a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution over nearly all radii in the halo. We explore the implications for velocity-dependent dark matter annihilation, focusing on four models which scale as different powers of the relative velocity: Sommerfeld, s-wave, p-wave, and d-wave models. We show that the J-factors scale as the moments of the relative velocity distribution, and that the halo-to-halo scatter is largest for d-wave, and smallest for Sommerfeld models. The J-factor is strongly correlated with the dark matter density in the halo, and is very weakly correlated with the velocity dispersion. This implies that if the dark matter density in the Milky Way can be robustly determined, one can accurately predict the dark matter annihilation signal, without the need to identify the dark matter velocity distribution in the Galaxy., Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables; added figure 11; JCAP accepted version

High-resolution optical spectra of 30 metal-poor stars selected from the \Pristine\ survey are presented, based on observations taken with the Gemini Observatory GRACES spectrograph. Stellar parameters \teff and \logg are determined using a Gaia DR2 colour-temperature calibration and surface gravity from the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. GRACES spectra are used to determine chemical abundances (or upper-limits) for 20 elements (Li, O, Na, Mg, K, Ca, Ti, Sc, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Y, Zr, Ba, La, Nd, Eu). These stars are confirmed to be metal-poor ([Fe/H]$<-2.5$), with higher precision than from earlier medium-resolution analyses. The chemistry for most targets is similar to other extremely metal-poor stars in the Galactic halo. Three stars near [Fe/H]$=-3.0$ have unusually low Ca and high Mg, suggestive of contributions from few SN~II where alpha-element formation through hydrostatic nucleosynthesis was more efficient. Three new carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars are also identified (two CEMP-s and one potential CEMP-no star) when our chemical abundances are combined with carbon from previous medium-resolution analyses. The GRACES spectra also provide precision radial velocities ($\sigma_{\rm RV}\le0.2$km\,s$^{-1}$) for dynamical orbit calculations with the Gaia DR2 proper motions. Most of our targets are dynamically associated with the Galactic halo; however, five stars with [Fe/H]$<-3$ have planar-like orbits, including one retrograde star. Another five stars are dynamically consistent with the Gaia-Sequoia accretion event; three have typical halo [$\alpha$/Fe] ratios for their metallicities, whereas two are [Mg/Fe]-deficient, and one is a new CEMP-s candidate. These results are discussed in terms of the formation and early chemical evolution of the Galaxy., Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures plus additional figures and tables in the appendix. MNRAS accepted

The pattern speed with which galactic bars rotate is intimately linked to the amount of dark matter in the inner regions of their host galaxies. In particular, dark matter haloes act to slow down bars via torques exerted through dynamical friction. Observational studies of barred galaxies tend to find that bars rotate fast, while hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of galaxy formation and evolution in the $\Lambda$CDM framework have previously found that bars slow down excessively. This has led to a growing tension between fast bars and the $\Lambda$CDM cosmological paradigm. In this study we revisit this issue, using the Auriga suite of high resolution, magneto-hydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations of galaxy formation and evolution in the $\Lambda$CDM framework, finding that bars remain fast down to $z=0$. In Auriga, bars form in galaxies that have higher stellar-to-dark matter ratios and are more baryon-dominated than in previous cosmological simulations; this suggests that in order for bars to remain fast, massive spiral galaxies must lie above the commonly used abundance matching relation. While this reduces the aforementioned tension between the rotation speed of bars and $\Lambda$CDM, it accentuates the recently reported discrepancy between the dynamically inferred stellar-to-dark matter ratios of massive spirals and those inferred from abundance matching. Our results highlight the potential of using bar dynamics to constrain models of galaxy formation and evolution., Comment: 5 pages + 4 pages of appendices; 7 figures; Accepted for publication in A&A Letters

We use the APOSTLE $\Lambda$CDM cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the Local Group to study the recent accretion of massive satellites into the halo of Milky Way (MW)-sized galaxies. These systems are selected to be close analogues to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the most massive satellite of the MW. The simulations allow us to address, in a cosmological context, the impact of the Clouds on the MW, including the contribution of Magellanic satellites to the MW satellite population, and the constraints placed on the Galactic potential by the motion of the LMC. We show that LMC-like satellites are twice more common around Local Group-like primaries than around isolated halos of similar mass; these satellites come from large turnaround radii and are on highly eccentric orbits whose velocities at first pericentre are comparable with the primary's escape velocity. This implies $V_{\rm esc}^{\rm MW} (50 $ kpc$)\sim 365$ km/s, a strong constraint on Galactic potential models. LMC analogues contribute about 2 satellites with $M_*>10^5\, M_\odot$, having thus only a mild impact on the luminous satellite population of their hosts. At first pericentre, LMC-associated satellites are close to the LMC in position and velocity, and are distributed along the LMC's orbital plane. Their orbital angular momenta roughly align with the LMC's, but, interestingly, they may appear to "counter-rotate" the MW in some cases. These criteria refine earlier estimates of the LMC association of MW satellites: only the SMC, Hydrus1, Car3, Hor1, Tuc4, Ret2 and Phoenix2 are compatible with all criteria. Carina, Grus2, Hor2 and Fornax are less probable associates given their large LMC relative velocity., Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We use N-body simulations to study the evolution of cuspy cold dark matter (CDM) halos in the gravitational potential of a massive host. Tidal mass losses reshape CDM halos, leaving behind bound remnants whose characteristic densities are set by the mean density of the host at the pericentre of their respective orbit. The evolution to the final bound remnant state is essentially complete after ~5 orbits for nearly circular orbits, while reaching the same remnant requires ~25 and ~40 orbits for eccentric orbits with 1:5 and 1:20 pericentre-to-apocentre ratios, respectively. The density profile of tidal remnants is fully specified by the fraction of mass lost, and approaches an exponentially-truncated Navarro-Frenk-White profile in the case of heavy mass loss. Resolving tidal remnants requires excellent numerical resolution; poorly resolved subhalos have systematically lower characteristic densities and are more easily disrupted. Even simulations with excellent spatial and time resolution fail when the final remnant is resolved with fewer than 3000 particles. We derive a simple empirical model that describes the evolution of the mass and the density profile of the tidal remnant applicable to a wide range of orbital eccentricities and pericentric distances. Applied to the Milky Way, our results suggest that $10^8$ - $10^{10}$ solar mass halos accreted ~10 Gyrs ago on 1:10 orbits with pericentric distance ~10 kpc should have been stripped to 0.1 - 1 per cent of their original mass. This implies that estimates of the survival and structure of such halos (the possible hosts of ultra-faint Milky Way satellites) based on direct cosmological simulations may be subject to substantial revision., Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures. Edited to match accepted version

Globular clusters (GCs) are often used to estimate the dark matter content of galaxies, especially dwarfs, where other kinematic tracers are lacking. These estimates typically assume spherical symmetry and dynamical equilibrium, assumptions that may not hold for the sparse GC population of dwarfs in galaxy clusters. We use a catalog of GCs tagged onto the Illustris simulation to study the accuracy of GC-based mass estimates. We focus on galaxies in the stellar mass range 10$^{8} - 10^{11.8}$ M$_{\odot}$ identified in $9$ simulated Virgo-like clusters. Our results indicate that mass estimates are, on average, quite accurate in systems with GC numbers $N_{\rm GC} \geq 10$ and where the uncertainty of individual GC line-of-sight velocities is smaller than the inferred velocity dispersion, $\sigma_{\rm GC}$. In cases where $N_{\rm GC} \leq 10$, however, biases may result depending on how $\sigma_{\rm GC}$ is computed. We provide calibrations that may help alleviate these biases in methods widely used in the literature. As an application, we find a number of dwarfs with $M_{*} \sim 10^{8.5}\, M_{\odot}$ (comparable to the ultradiffuse galaxy DF2, notable for the low $\sigma_{GC}$ of its $10$ GCs) with $\sigma_{\rm GC} \sim 7$ - $15\; \rm km \rm s^{-1}$. These DF2 analogs correspond to relatively massive systems at their infall time ($M_{200} \sim 1$ - $3 \times 10^{11}$ $M_{\odot}$) which have retained only $3$-$17$ GCs and have been stripped of more than 95$\%$ of their dark matter. Our results suggest that extreme tidal mass loss in otherwise normal dwarf galaxies may be a possible formation channel for ultradiffuse objects like DF2., Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures. Accepted to MNRAS Dec. 11 2020

The kinematics of the most metal-poor stars provide a window into the early formation and accretion history of the Milky Way. Here, we use 5~high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations ($\sim~5\times10^6$ star particles) of Milky Way-like galaxies taken from the NIHAO-UHD project, to investigate the origin of low-metallicity stars ([Fe/H]$\leq-2.5$). The simulations show a prominent population of low-metallicity stars confined to the disk plane, as recently discovered in the Milky Way. The ubiquity of this finding suggests that the Milky Way is not unique in this respect. Independently of the accretion history, we find that $\gtrsim~90$ per cent of the retrograde stars in this population are brought in during the initial build-up of the galaxies during the first few Gyrs after the Big Bang. Our results therefore highlight the great potential of the retrograde population as a tracer of the early build-up of the Milky Way. The prograde planar population, on the other hand, is accreted during the later assembly phase and samples the full galactic accretion history. In case of a quiet accretion history, this prograde population is mainly brought in during the first half of cosmic evolution ($t\lesssim7$~Gyr), while, in the case of an on-going active accretion history, later mergers on prograde orbits are also able to contribute to this population. Finally, we note that the Milky Way shows a rather large population of eccentric, very metal-poor planar stars. This is a feature not seen in most of our simulations, with the exception of one simulation with an exceptionally active early building phase., Comment: Submitted to MNRAS, 8 figures, 13 pages

We present an analysis of the structure, kinematics and orbit of a newly found stellar stream emanating from the globular cluster M92 (NGC 6341). This stream was discovered in an improved matched-filter map of the outer Galaxy, based on a "color-color-magnitude" diagram, created using photometry from the Canada-France Imaging Survey (CFIS) and the Pan-STARRS 1 3$\pi$ survey (PS1). We find the stream to have a length of 17{\deg} (2.5 kpc at the distance of M92), a width dispersion of $0.29${\deg}(42 pc) and a stellar mass of $[3.17 \pm{0.89}] \times 10^{4} $ M$_\odot$ ($10 \%$ of the stellar mass of the current main body of M92). We examine the kinematics of main sequence, red giant and blue horizontal branch stars belonging to the stream and that have proper motion measurements from the second data release of Gaia. N-body simulations suggest that the stream was likely formed very recently (during the last $\sim 500$ Myr) forcing us to question the orbital origin of this ancient, metal-poor globular cluster., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

This compilation is the fourth data release from the $R$-Process Alliance (RPA) search for $r$-process-enhanced stars, and the second release based on "snapshot" high-resolution ($R \sim 30,000$) spectra collected with the du Pont 2.5m Telescope. In this data release, we propose a new delineation between the $r$-I and $r$-II stellar classes at $\mathrm{[Eu/Fe]} = +0.7$, instead of the empirically chosen $\mathrm{[Eu/Fe]} = +1.0$ level previously in use, based on statistical tests of the complete set of RPA data released to date. We also statistically justify the minimum level of [Eu/Fe] for definition of the $r$-I stars, [Eu/Fe] $> +0.3$. Redefining the separation between $r$-I and $r$-II stars will aid in analysis of the possible progenitors of these two classes of stars and whether these signatures arise from separate astrophysical sources at all. Applying this redefinition to previous RPA data, the number of identified $r$-II and $r$-I stars changes to 51 and 121, respectively, from the initial set of data releases published thus far. In this data release, we identify 21 new $r$-II, 111 new $r$-I (plus three re-identified), and 7 new (plus one re-identified) limited-$r$ stars out of a total of 232 target stars, resulting in a total sample of 72 new $r$-II stars, 232 new $r$-I stars, and 42 new limited-$r$ stars identified by the RPA to date., Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables; accepted to ApJS

Metal-poor stars are important tools for tracing the early history of the Milky Way, and for learning about the first generations of stars. Simulations suggest that the oldest metal-poor stars are to be found in the inner Galaxy. Typical bulge surveys, however, lack low metallicity ([Fe/H] < -1.0) stars because the inner Galaxy is predominantly metal-rich. The aim of the Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) is to study the metal-poor and very metal-poor (VMP, [Fe/H] < -2.0) stars in this region. In PIGS, metal-poor targets for spectroscopic follow-up are selected from metallicity-sensitive CaHK photometry from the CFHT. This work presents the ~250 deg^2 photometric survey as well as intermediate-resolution spectroscopic follow-up observations for ~8000 stars using AAOmega on the AAT. The spectra are analysed using two independent tools: ULySS with an empirical spectral library, and FERRE with a library of synthetic spectra. The comparison between the two methods enables a robust determination of the stellar parameters and their uncertainties. We present a sample of 1300 VMP stars -- the largest sample of VMP stars in the inner Galaxy to date. Additionally, our spectroscopic dataset includes ~1700 horizontal branch stars, which are useful metal-poor standard candles. We furthermore show that PIGS photometry selects VMP stars with unprecedented efficiency: 86%/80% (lower/higher extinction) of the best candidates satisfy [Fe/H] < -2.0, as do 80%/63% of a larger, less strictly selected sample. We discuss future applications of this unique dataset that will further our understanding of the chemical and dynamical evolution of the innermost regions of our Galaxy., Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS, 17 pages, 9 figures

The radial acceleration relation (RAR) locally relates the `observed' acceleration inferred from the dynamics of a system to the acceleration implied by its baryonic matter distribution. The relation as traced by galaxy rotation curves is one-to-one with remarkably little scatter, implying that the dynamics of a system can be predicted simply by measuring its density profile as traced by e.g. stellar light or gas emission lines. Extending the relation to accelerations below those usually probed by practically observable kinematic tracers is challenging, especially once accounting for faintly emitting baryons, such as the putative warm-hot intergalactic medium, becomes important. We show that in the low-acceleration regime, the (inverted) RAR predicts an unphysical, declining enclosed baryonic mass profile for systems with `observed' acceleration profiles steeper than $g_{\rm obs}\propto r^{-1}$ (corresponding to density profiles steeper than isothermal - $\rho(r)\propto r^{-2}$). If the RAR is tantamount to a natural law, such acceleration profiles cannot exist. We apply this argument to test the compatibility of an extrapolation of the rotation curve-derived RAR to low accelerations with data from galaxy-galaxy weak lensing, dwarf spheroidal galaxy stellar kinematic, and outer Milky~Way dynamical measurements, fully independent of the uncertainties inherent in direct measurements of the baryonic matter distribution. In all cases we find that the data weakly favour a break to a steeper low-acceleration slope. Improvements in measurements and modelling of the outer Milky~Way, and weak lensing, seem like the most promising path toward stronger constraints on the low-acceleration behaviour of the RAR., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures (+appendices), v2 corrects a factual error in Sec. 2

We present a new spectroscopic study of the faint Milky Way satellite Sagittarius II. Using multi-object spectroscopy from the Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph, we supplement the dataset of Longeard et al. (2020) with 47 newly observed stars, 19 of which are identified as members of the satellite. These additional member stars are used to put tighter constraints on the dynamics and the metallicity properties of the system. We find a low velocity dispersion of SgrII v = 1.7 +/- 0.5 km s-1, in agreement with the dispersion of Milky Way globular clusters of similar luminosity. We confirm the very metal-poor nature of the satellite ([Fe/H]_SgrII = -2.23 +/- 0.07) and find that the metallicity dispersion of Sgr II is not resolved, reaching only 0.20 at the 95% confidence limit. No star with a metallicity below -2.5 is confidently detected. Therefore, despite the unusually large size of the system (rh = 35.5 +1.4-1.2 pc), we conclude that Sgr II is an old and metal-poor globular cluster of the Milky Way.

We use cosmological simulations of isolated Milky Way-mass galaxies, as well as Local Group analogues, to define the "edge" -- a caustic manifested in a drop in density or radial velocity -- of Galactic-sized haloes, both in dark matter and in stars. In the dark matter, we typically identify two caustics: the outermost caustic located at ~1.4r_200m corresponding to the "splashback" radius, and a second caustic located at ~0.6r_200m which likely corresponds to the edge of the virialized material which has completed at least two pericentric passages. The splashback radius is ill defined in Local Group type environments where the halos of the two galaxies overlap. However, the second caustic is less affected by the presence of a companion, and is a more useful definition for the boundary of the Milky Way halo. Curiously, the stellar distribution also has a clearly defined caustic, which, in most cases, coincides with the second caustic of the dark matter. This can be identified in both radial density and radial velocity profiles, and should be measurable in future observational programmes. Finally, we show that the second caustic can also be identified in the phase-space distribution of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. Using the current dwarf galaxy population, we predict the edge of the Milky Way halo to be 292 +/- 61 kpc., Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. MNRAS in press

We present part 2 of the 6th and final Data Release (DR6 or FDR) of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE), a magnitude-limited (9

The Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) is a magnitude-limited (9

We test a non-parametric higher-order Jeans analysis method, GravSphere, on 32 simulated dwarf galaxies comparable to classical Local Group dwarfs like Fornax. The galaxies are selected from the APOSTLE suite of cosmological hydrodynamics simulations with Cold Dark Matter (CDM) and Self-Interacting Dark Matter (SIDM) models, allowing us to investigate cusps and cores in density distributions. We find that, for CDM dwarfs, the recovered enclosed mass profiles have a bias of no more than 10 per cent, with a 50 per cent scatter in the inner regions and a 20 per cent scatter near the half-light radius, consistent with standard mass estimators. The density profiles are also recovered with a bias of no more than 10 per cent and a scatter of 30 per cent in the inner regions. For SIDM dwarfs, the mass and density profiles are recovered within our 95 per cent confidence intervals, but are biased towards cuspy dark matter distributions. This is mainly due to a lack of sufficient constraints from the data. We explore the sources of scatter in the accuracy of the recovered profiles and suggest a $\chi^2$ statistic to separate successful models from biased ones. Finally, we show that the uncertainties on the mass profiles obtained with GravSphere are smaller than those for comparable Jeans methods, and that they can be further improved if stronger priors, motivated by cosmological simulations, are placed on the velocity anisotropy. We conclude that GravSphere is a promising Jeans-based approach for modelling dark matter distributions in dwarf galaxies., Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures. Accepted in MNRAS

We use a compilation of disc galaxy rotation curves to assess the role of the luminous component ("baryons") in the rotation curve diversity problem. As in earlier work, we find that rotation curve shape correlates with baryonic surface density: high surface density galaxies have rapidly-rising rotation curves consistent with cuspy cold dark matter halos; slowly-rising rotation curves (characteristic of galaxies with inner mass deficits or "cores") occur only in low surface density galaxies. The correlation, however, seems too weak to be the main driver of the diversity. In addition, dwarf galaxies exhibit a clear trend, from "cuspy" systems where baryons are unimportant in the inner mass budget to "cored" galaxies where baryons actually dominate. This trend constrains the various scenarios proposed to explain the diversity, such as (i) baryonic inflows and outflows during galaxy formation; (ii) dark matter self-interactions; (iii) variations in the baryonic mass structure coupled to rotation velocities through the "mass discrepancy-acceleration relation" (MDAR); or (iv) non-circular motions in gaseous discs. Together with analytical modeling and cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, our analysis shows that each of these scenarios has promising features, but none seems to fully account for the observed diversity. The MDAR, in particular, is inconsistent with the observed trend between rotation curve shape and baryonic importance; either the trend is caused by systematic errors in the data or the MDAR does not apply. The origin of the dwarf galaxy rotation curve diversity and its relation to the structure of cold dark matter halos remains an open issue., Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Updated acknowledgements

The orbits of the least chemically enriched stars open a window on the formation of our Galaxy when it was still in its infancy. The common picture is that these low-metallicity stars are distributed as an isotropic, pressure-supported component since these stars were either accreted from the early building blocks of the assembling Milky Way, or were later brought by the accretion of faint dwarf galaxies. Combining the metallicities and radial velocities from the Pristine and LAMOST surveys and Gaia DR2 parallaxes and proper motions for an unprecedented large and unbiased sample of very metal-poor stars at $[Fe/H]\leq-2.5$ we show that this picture is incomplete. This sample shows strong statistical evidence (at the $5.0\sigma$ level) of asymmetry in their kinematics, favouring prograde motion. Moreover, we find that $31\%$ of the stars that currently reside in the disk do not venture outside of the disk plane throughout their orbit. The discovery of this population implies that a significant fraction of stars with iron abundances $[Fe/H]\leq-2.5$ formed within or concurrently with the Milky Way disk and that the history of the disk was quiet enough to allow them to retain their disk-like orbital properties., Comment: Submitted to MNRAS letter, 5 pages with 1 figure. Appendices A and B with 3 figures

We determine the Milky Way (MW) mass profile inferred from fitting physically motivated models to the Gaia DR2 Galactic rotation curve and other data. Using various hydrodynamical simulations of MW-mass haloes, we show that the presence of baryons induces a contraction of the dark matter (DM) distribution in the inner regions, r<20 kpc. We provide an analytic expression that relates the baryonic distribution to the change in the DM halo profile. For our galaxy, the contraction increases the enclosed DM halo mass by factors of roughly 1.3, 2 and 4 at radial distances of 20, 8 and 1 kpc, respectively compared to an uncontracted halo. Ignoring this contraction results in systematic biases in the inferred halo mass and concentration. We provide a best-fitting contracted NFW halo model to the MW rotation curve that matches the data very well. The best-fit has a DM halo mass, $M_{200}^{\rm DM}=0.97_{-0.19}^{+0.24}\times10^{12} M_\odot$, and concentration before baryon contraction of $9.4_{-2.6}^{+1.9}$, which lie close to the median halo mass--concentration relation predicted in $\Lambda$CDM. The inferred total mass, $M_{200}^{\rm total}=1.08_{-0.14}^{+0.20} \times 10^{12} M_\odot$, is in good agreement with recent measurements. The model gives a MW stellar mass of $5.04_{-0.52}^{+0.43}\times10^{10} M_\odot$ and infers that the DM density at the Solar position is $\rho_{\odot}^{\rm DM}=8.8_{-0.5}^{+0.5}\times10^{-3} M_\odot \rm{pc}^{-3}\equiv0.33_{-0.02}^{+0.02}~\rm{GeV}~\rm{cm}^{-3}$. The rotation curve data can also be fitted with an uncontracted NFW halo model, but with very different DM and stellar parameters. The observations prefer the physically motivated contracted NFW halo, but the measurement uncertainties are too large to rule out the uncontracted NFW halo., Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, main results: figs 3, 7, 10 and 11; MNRAS accepted version, code and resources available at https://github.com/MariusCautun/Milky_Way_mass_profile