Eridanus IV: an Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxy Candidate Discovered in the DECam Local Volume Exploration Survey

Abstract

We present the discovery of a candidate ultra-faint Milky Way satellite, Eridanus IV (DELVE J0505$-$0931), detected in photometric data from the DECam Local Volume Exploration survey (DELVE). Eridanus IV is a faint ($M_V=-4.7\pm 0.2$), extended ($r_{1/2}=75_{-13}^{+16}$ pc), and elliptical ($\epsilon =0.54\pm 0.1$) system at a heliocentric distance of $76.7_{-6.1}^{+4.0}$ kpc, with a stellar population that is well-described by an old, metal-poor isochrone (age of $\tau \sim 13.0$ Gyr and metallicity of $[Fe/H]\lesssim -2.1$ dex). These properties are consistent with the known population of ultra-faint Milky Way satellite galaxies. Eridanus IV is also prominently detected using proper motion measurements from Gaia Early Data Release 3, with a systemic proper motion of $({\mu }_{\alpha }\cos \delta ,{\mu }_{\delta })=(+0.25\pm 0.06,-0.10\pm 0.05)$ mas yr${}^{-1}$ measured from its horizontal branch and red giant branch member stars. We find that the spatial distribution of likely member stars hints at the possibility that the system is undergoing tidal disruption.

arXiv comment9 pages, 4 figures (+1 page appendix); updated to match version published in ApJL

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