From dawn till disk: Milky Way's turbulent youth revealed by the APOGEE+Gaia data

Abstract

We use accurate estimates of aluminium abundance provided as part of the APOGEE Data Release 17 and Gaia Early Data Release 3 astrometry to select a highly pure sample of stars with metallicity $-1.5\lesssim [Fe/H]\lesssim 0.5$ born in-situ in the Milky Way proper. We show that the low-metallicity ([Fe/H]$\lesssim -1.3$) in-situ component that we dub Aurora is kinematically hot with an approximately isotropic velocity ellipsoid and a modest net rotation. Aurora stars exhibit large scatter in metallicity and in a number of element abundance ratios. The median tangential velocity of the in-situ stars increases sharply with increasing metallicity between [Fe/H]$=-1.3$ and $-0.9$, the transition that we call the spin-up. The observed and theoretically expected age-metallicity correlations imply that this increase reflects a rapid formation of the Milky Way disk over $\approx 1-2$ Gyrs. The transformation of the stellar kinematics as a function of [Fe/H] is accompanied by a qualitative change in chemical abundances: the scatter drops sharply once the Galaxy builds up a disk during later epochs corresponding to [Fe/H]$>-0.9$. Results of galaxy formation models presented in this and other recent studies strongly indicate that the trends observed in the Milky Way reflect generic processes during the early evolution of progenitors of MW-sized galaxies: a period of chaotic pre-disk evolution, when gas is accreted along cold narrow filaments and when stars are born in irregular configurations, and subsequent rapid disk formation. The latter signals formation of a stable hot gaseous halo around the MW progenitor, which changes the mode of gas accretion and allows development of coherently rotating disk.

Comments are welcome!

References in corpus (59)

• The Gaia mission
• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation
• galpy: A Python Library for Galactic Dynamics
• The EAGLE simulations of galaxy formation: calibration of subgrid physics and model variations
• Two Stellar Components in the Halo of the Milky Way
• Evidence from the H3 Survey that the Stellar Halo is Entirely Comprised of Substructure
• The Dual Origin of Stellar Halos
• Four phases of angular-momentum buildup in high-z galaxies: from cosmic-web streams through an extended ring to disc and bulge
• The lifecycle of molecular clouds in nearby star-forming disc galaxies
• Fast and inefficient star formation due to short-lived molecular clouds and rapid feedback
• On the self-enrichment scenario of galactic globular clusters: Constraints on the IMF
• Evidence from APOGEE for the presence of a major building block of the halo buried in the inner Galaxy
• A dynamically cold disk galaxy in the early Universe
• Building Late-Type Spiral Galaxies by In-Situ and Ex-Situ Star Formation
• VINTERGATAN I: The origins of chemically, kinematically and structurally distinct discs in a simulated Milky Way-mass galaxy
• The Global Dynamical Atlas of the Milky Way mergers: Constraints from Gaia EDR3 based orbits of globular clusters, stellar streams and satellite galaxies
• The Structure and Dynamical Evolution of the Stellar Disk of a Simulated Milky Way-Mass Galaxy
• Light nuclei in galactic globular clusters : constraints on the self-enrichment scenario from nucleosynthesis
• APOGEE Chemical Abundance Patterns of the Massive Milky Way Satellites
• Cold Dark Matter Substructure and Galactic Disks II: Dynamical Effects of Hierarchical Satellite Accretion
• Disentangling the Galactic Halo with APOGEE: I. Chemical and Kinematical Investigation of Distinct Metal-Poor Populations
• Star cluster formation in cosmological simulations. I. Properties of young clusters
• A Cold, Massive, Rotating Disk Galaxy 1.5 Billion Years after the Big Bang
• Star clusters near and far; tracing star formation across cosmic time
• Virialization of the inner CGM in the FIRE simulations and implications for galaxy discs, star formation and feedback
• Chronologically dating the early assembly of the Milky Way
• Sausage & Mash: The dual origin of the Galactic thick disc and halo from the gas-rich Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage merger
• Halo Substructure in the SDSS-Gaia Catalogue : Streams and Clumps
• Timing the Early Assembly of the Milky Way with the H3 Survey
• The time-scales probed by star formation rate indicators for realistic, bursty star formation histories from the FIRE simulations
• The Diversity and Variability of Star Formation Histories in Models of Galaxy Evolution
• Chemo-kinematics of the $Gaia$ RR Lyrae: the halo and the disc
• On the duration of the embedded phase of star formation
• Disruption of giant molecular clouds and formation of bound star clusters under the influence of momentum stellar feedback
• A homogeneous analysis of globular clusters from the APOGEE survey with the BACCHUS code. I. The Northern clusters
• Spiral morphology in an intensely star-forming disk galaxy more than 12 billion years ago
• The Formation Times and Building Blocks of Milky Way-mass Galaxies in the FIRE Simulations
• Star cluster formation in the most extreme environments: Insights from the HiPEEC survey
• Inside Out and Upside-Down: The Roles of Gas Cooling and Dynamical Heating in Shaping the Stellar Age-Velocity Relation
• The bursty origin of the Milky Way thick disc
• A mass threshold for galactic gas discs by spin flips
• Disentangling the Galactic Halo with APOGEE: II. Chemical and Star Formation Histories for the Two Distinct Populations
• Merger-induced galaxy transformations in the ARTEMIS simulations
• Revisiting nucleosynthesis in globular clusters: the case of NGC 2808 and the role of He and K
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: A globular cluster escapee in the Galactic halo
• Formation and evolution of young massive clusters in galaxy mergers: the SMUGGLE view
• Morphologies of Two Massive Old Galaxies at z ~ 2.5
• The tale of the tail -- disentangling the high transverse velocity stars in Gaia DR2
• Purveyors of fine halos: Re-assessing globular cluster contributions to the Milky Way halo build-up with SDSS-IV
• Aluminum Enhanced Metal-Poor Stars buried in the Inner Galaxy
• Spatial Decorrelation of Young Stars and Dense Gas as a Probe of the Star Formation-Feedback Cycle in Galaxies
• The Pristine survey XIII: Uncovering the very metal-poor tail of the thin disc
• Age-Dating Red Giant Stars Associated with Galactic Disk and Halo Substructures
• The chemodynamics of prograde and retrograde Milky Way stars
• Thermal Instabilities and Shattering in the High-Redshift WHIM: Convergence Criteria and Implications for Low-Metallicity Strong HI Absorbers
• The Dawn of Disk Formation in a Milky Way-sized Galaxy Halo: Thin Stellar Disks at $z>4$
• Evolution of Disc Thickness in Simulated High-Redshift Galaxies
• Extreme Variation in Star Formation Efficiency Across a Compact, Starbursting Disk Galaxy
• Chemo-dynamics and asteroseismic ages of seven metal-poor red giants from the Kepler field

Cited by in corpus (115)

• Overview of the DESI Milky Way Survey
• The chemical characterisation of halo substructure in the Milky Way based on APOGEE
• Public data release of the FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations of galaxy formation
• What Causes The Formation of Disks and End of Bursty Star Formation?
• Galactic Archaeology with Gaia
• GASTRO library I: the simulated chemodynamical properties of several GSE-like stellar halos
• Rapid disc settling and the transition from bursty to steady star formation in Milky Way-mass galaxies
• Nitrogen enrichment and clustered star formation at the dawn of the Galaxy
• Spectroscopic age estimates for APOGEE red-giant stars: Precise spatial and kinematic trends with age in the Galactic disc
• The Stellar Halo of the Galaxy is Tilted & Doubly Broken
• Unveiling the time evolution of chemical abundances across the Milky Way disk with APOGEE
• Born this way: thin disc, thick disc, and isotropic spheroid formation in FIRE-2 Milky-Way-mass galaxy simulations
• On the origin of the Galactic thin and thick discs, their abundance gradients and the diagnostic potential of their abundance ratios
• Stellar halo substructure generated by bar resonances
• Disk settling and dynamical heating: histories of Milky Way-mass stellar disks across cosmic time in the FIRE simulations
• The Pristine survey -- XXIII. Data Release 1 and an all-sky metallicity catalogue based on Gaia DR3 BP/RP spectro-photometry
• Energy wrinkles and phase-space folds of the last major merger
• The distribution of globular clusters in kinematic spaces does not trace the accretion history of the host galaxy
• Chronology of our Galaxy from Gaia Colour-Magnitude Diagram-fitting (ChronoGal). I. The formation and evolution of the thin disk from the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars
• The Three-Phase Evolution of the Milky Way
• RR Lyrae From Binary Evolution: Abundant, Young and Metal-Rich
• The impact of early massive mergers on the chemical evolution of Milky Way-like galaxies: insights from NIHAO-UHD simulations
• Formation of Galactic Disks I: Why Did the Milky Way's Disk Form Unusually Early?
• The mass-loss rates of star clusters with stellar-mass black holes: implications for the globular cluster mass function
• Discovery of the local counterpart of disc galaxies at z > 4: The oldest thin disc of the Milky Way using Gaia-RVS
• The Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) V: a chemo-dynamical investigation of the early assembly of the Milky Way with the most metal-poor stars in the bulge
• DESI Early Data Release Milky Way Survey Value-Added Catalogue
• The evolution of the Milky Way's thin disc radial metallicity gradient with K2 asteroseismic ages
• The complex stellar system M 22: confirming abundance variations with high precision differential measurements
• VINTERGATAN-GM: The cosmological imprints of early mergers on Milky-Way-mass galaxies
• The formation and survival of the Milky Way's oldest stellar disk
• A Swing of the Pendulum: The Chemodynamics of the Local Stellar Halo Indicate Contributions from Several Radial Merger Events
• The Unmixed Debris of Gaia-Sausage/Enceladus in the Form of a Pair of Halo Stellar Overdensities
• The stellar halo in Local Group Hestia simulations II. The accreted component
• The stellar halo in Local Group Hestia simulations III. Chemical abundance relations for accreted and in-situ stars
• Exploring the diversity and similarity of radially anisotropic Milky Way-like stellar haloes: implications for disrupted dwarf galaxy searches
• Milky Way-est: Cosmological Zoom-in Simulations with Large Magellanic Cloud and Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus Analogs
• LIMFAST. II. Line Intensity Mapping as a Probe of High-Redshift Galaxy Formation
• The impact of two massive early accretion events in a Milky Way-like galaxy: repercussions for the buildup of the stellar disc and halo
• Chronology of the chemical enrichment of the old Galactic stellar populations
• Observational Constraints of Radial Migration in the Galactic Disc Driven by the Slowing Bar
• The imprint of clump formation at high redshift. II. The chemistry of the bulge
• Taking the Milky Way for a spin: disc formation in the ARTEMIS simulations
• The GALAH survey: Tracing the Milky Way's formation and evolution through RR Lyrae stars
• Catalogue of model star clusters in the Milky Way and M31 galaxies
• Probing the early Milky Way with GHOST spectra of an extremely metal-poor star in the Galactic disk
• PANORAMIC: Discovery of an Ultra-Massive Grand-Design Spiral Galaxy at $z\sim 5.2$
• The Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) VII: a discovery of the first inner Galaxy CEMP-r/s star
• A rapid channel for the collisional formation and gravitational wave driven mergers of supermassive black hole seeds at high redshift
• On the metal-poor edge of the Milky Way "thin disc"
• Exploring the chemodynamics of metal-poor stellar populations
• Stellar populations and origin of thick disks in AURIGA simulations
• High-speed stars. II. An unbound star, young stars, bulge metal-poor stars, and Aurora candidates
• On the likelihoods of finding very metal-poor (and old) stars in the Milky Way's disc, bulge, and halo
• High Velocity Stars in SDSS/APOGEE DR17
• Characterisation of local halo building blocks: Thamnos and Sequoia
• Evolution of the radial ISM metallicity gradient in the Milky Way disk since redshift $\approx 3$
• The Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) X. Probing the early chemical evolution of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy with carbon abundances
• A high fidelity Milky Way simulation with Kraken, Gaia-Enceladus, and Sequoia analogues: clues to their accretion histories
• Homogeneous Stellar Atmospheric Parameters and 22 Elemental Abundances for FGK Stars Derived From LAMOST Low-resolution Spectra with DD-Payne
• The Pristine survey -- XX: GTC follow-up observations of extremely metal-poor stars identified from Pristine and LAMOST
• The Pristine survey: XXV. The very metal-poor Galaxy: Chemodynamics through the follow-up of the Pristine-Gaia synthetic catalogue
• Bar-driven dispersal of Galactic substructure
• Chronology of our Galaxy from Gaia colour-magnitude diagram fitting (ChronoGal) II. Unveiling the formation and evolution of the kinematically selected Thick and Thin Discs
• The S-PLUS Ultra-Short Survey: first data release
• Could very low-metallicity stars with rotation-dominated orbits have been shepherded by the bar?
• Untangling the Sources of Abundance Dispersion in Low-Metallicity Stars
• Mapping the Milky Way with Gaia Bp/Rp spectra I: Systematic flux corrections and atmospheric parameters for 68 million stars
• A Blueprint for the Milky Way's Stellar Populations. IV. A String of Pearls $-$ the Galactic Starburst Sequence
• How well can we unravel the accreted constituents of the Milky Way stellar halo? A test on cosmological hydrodynamical simulations
• Formation of Transitional cE/UCD Galaxies through Massive/Dwarf Disc Galaxy Mergers
• Rediscovering the Milky Way with orbit superposition approach and APOGEE data II. Chrono-chemo-kinematics of the disc
• Deciphering the Milky Way disc formation time encrypted in the bar chrono-kinematics
• Trojan globular clusters: radial migration via trapping in bar resonances
• Rediscovering the Milky Way with orbit superposition approach and APOGEE data I. Method validation
• High-Resolution Chemical Abundances of the Nyx Stream
• Exploring the ex-situ components within Gaia DR3
• The ones that got away: chemical tagging of globular cluster-origin stars with Gaia BP/RP spectra
• Measuring Dwarf Galaxy Intrinsic Abundance Scatter with Mid-resolution Spectroscopic Surveys: Calibrating APOGEE Abundance Errors
• Advancing accuracy in age determinations of old-disk stars using an oscillating red giant in an eclipsing binary
• Natal kicks of compact objects
• The Pristine Survey -- XXVII. Journey to the Galactic outskirts -- Mapping the outer halo red giant stars down to the very metal-poor end
• Pushing the boundaries of asteroseismic individual frequency modelling: unveiling two evolved very-low metallicity red giants
• AuriDESI: Mock Catalogues for the DESI Milky Way Survey
• A Gaia based analysis of open cluster Berkeley 27
• Magnesium isotope ratios in Milky Way and dwarf galaxy stars
• Dynamical mirages: how bar-induced resonant trapping can mimic substructure clustering in dynamical parameter spaces
• The assembly of the most rotationally supported disc galaxies in the TNG100 simulations
• Deciphering the Kinematic Substructure of Local Dark Matter with LAMOST K Giants
• The Milky Way in context: The formation of galactic discs and chemical sequences from a cosmological perspective
• Fewer Companions in the Crowd: The Low Close Binary Fraction in Globular Clusters from Gaia RVS
• Globular clusters in \textsc{OrbIT}: complete dynamical characterisation of the globular cluster population of the Milky Way through updated orbital reconstruction
• A path towards constraining the evolution of the interstellar medium and outflows in the Milky Way using APOGEE
• The dawn is quiet here: Rise in [$\alpha$/Fe] is a signature of massive gas accretion that fueled proto-Milky Way
• Chemical tagging with APOGEE, MUSE, and HST: constraints on the formation of $\omega$ Centauri
• A slow spin to win -- the gradual evolution of the proto-Galaxy to the old disc
• Milky Way's Metal-Poor Stars display Chemical Transition near the Solar Radius
• Rediscovering the Milky Way with orbit superposition approach and APOGEE data III. Panoramic view of the bulge
• Build-up and survival of the disc: From numerical models of galaxy formation to the Milky Way
• The metal-poorest tail of the Galactic halo: hypothesis on its origin from precise spectral analysis
• The Spheroidal Bulge of the Milky Way: Chemodynamically Distinct from the Inner-Thick Disc and Bar
• The progenitor galaxies of stellar haloes as "failed" Milky Ways
• On the connection between nitrogen-enhanced field stars and the Galactic globular clusters
• FROST-CLUSTERS -- III. Metallicity-dependent intermediate mass black hole formation by runaway collisions in dense star clusters
• Solar twins in Gaia DR3 GSP-Spec II. Age distribution and its implications for the Sun's migration
• Probing the Milky Way Halo with RR Lyrae Stars from Gaia Data Release 3
• Cold vs. Hot Gas Accretion and Angular Momentum in FIRE Simulations: From Halo to Galaxy Scales
• An ancient system hidden in the Galactic plane?
• Probing the millisecond pulsar origin of the $\gamma$-ray excess in the Galactic centre with LISA
• The DORCHA suite: nature, nurture, and the phase space distribution of the Milky Way's high redshift progenitors today
• Dynamical properties of high-[Mg/Fe] stars in the Milky Way bar region
• The chemodynamical memory of a major merger in a NIHAO-UHD Milky Way analogue -- I. A golden thread through time and space
• SF-R You Sure? The Conflicting Role of Star Formation Rates in Constraining the Evolution of Milky Way Analogues in Cosmological Simulations
• The Cosmic Rush Hour: Rapid Formation of Bright, Massive, Disky, Star-Forming Galaxies as Signatures of Early-Universe Physics
• Metallicity Structure in Galactic Longitude-Velocity Diagrams of the Milky Way Disk and FIRE-2 Simulations