The Nature and Origin of Substructure in the Outskirts of M31. I. Surveying the Stellar Content with HST/ACS

Abstract

We present the largest and most detailed survey to date of the stellar populations in the outskirts of M31 based on the analysis of 14 deep HST/ACS pointings spanning the range 11.5-45.0 kpc. We conduct a quantitative comparison of the resolved stellar populations in these fields and identify several striking trends. The color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), which reach ~3 magnitudes below the red clump, can be classified into two main categories based on their morphologies. `Stream-like' fields, so named for their similarity to the CMD of the giant stellar stream, are characterized by a red clump that slants bluewards at fainter magnitudes and an extended horizontal branch. On the other hand, `disk-like' fields exhibit rounder red clumps with significant luminosity width, lack an obvious horizontal branch and show evidence for recent star formation (~0.25 - 2.0 Gyr ago). We compare the spatial and line-of-sight distribution of stream-like fields with a recent simulation of the giant stream progenitor orbit and find an excellent agreement. These fields, found across the face of M31, attest to the high degree of pollution caused by this event. Disk-like material resides in the extended disk structure of M31 and is detected out to 44 kpc (projected); the uniform populations in these fields, including the ubiquitous presence of young populations, and the strong rotation reported elsewhere are most consistent with a scenario in which this structure has formed through heating and disruption of the existing thin disk, perhaps due to the impact of the giant stream progenitor. Our comparative analysis sheds new light on the likely composition of two of the ultra-deep pointings formerly presented as pure outer disk and pure halo in the literature.

Accepted to AJ. ftp://ftp.roe.ac.uk/pub/jcr/richardson2008.pdf contains high resolution figures. 16 pages, 10 figures; best seen in color on above link

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• The survey of planetary nebulae in Andromeda (M31) VII. Predictions of a major merger simulation model compared with chemodynamical data of the disc and inner halo substructures
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• The origin of the metallicity distributions of the NE and W stellar shelves in the Andromeda Galaxy
• The survey of Planetary Nebulae in Andromeda (M31): I. Imaging the disk and halo with MegaCam@CFHT