Galactic Halo substructure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: the ancient tidal stream from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy

Abstract

Two studies have recently reported the discovery of pronounced Halo substructure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) commissioning data. Here we show that this Halo substructure is almost in its entirety due to the expected tidal stream torn off the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy during the course of its many close encounters with the Milky Way. This interpretation makes strong predictions on the kinematics and distances of these stream stars. Comparison of the structure in old horizontal branch stars, detected by the SDSS team, with the carbon star structure discovered in our own survey, indicates that this halo stream is of comparable age to the Milky Way. It would appear that the Milky Way and the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy have been a strongly interacting system for most of their existence. Once complete, the SDSS will provide a unique dataset with which to constrain the dynamical evolution of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, it will also strongly constrain the mass distribution of the outer Milky Way.

7 pages, 3 figures (1 color figure chunky due to PS compression), minor revisions,accepted by ApJL

References in corpus (7)

• Dark Matter Substructure in Galactic Halos
• Great Circle tidal streams: evidence for a nearly spherical massive dark halo around the Milky Way
• Identification of A-colored Stars and Structure in the Halo of the Milky Way from SDSS Commissioning Data
• Candidate RR Lyrae Stars Found in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data
• Mapping the Galactic Halo I. The `Spaghetti' Survey
• Constraining the History of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy Using Observations of its Tidal Debris
• The APM Survey for Cool Carbon Stars in the Galactic Halo - II The Search for Dwarf Carbon Stars

Cited by in corpus (185)

• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems
• The New Galaxy: Signatures of its Formation
• A 2MASS All-Sky View of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy: I. Morphology of the Sagittarius Core and Tidal Arms
• The Field of Streams: Sagittarius and its Siblings
• The Ghost of Sagittarius and Lumps in the Halo of the Milky Way
• A giant stream of metal-rich stars in the halo of the galaxy M31
• Galactic stellar haloes in the CDM model
• Great Circle tidal streams: evidence for a nearly spherical massive dark halo around the Milky Way
• A Low Latitude Halo Stream around the Milky Way
• Evidence for Stellar Substructure in the Halo and Outer Disk of M31
• The Haunted Halos of Andromeda and Triangulum: A panorama of galaxy formation in action
• Cold Dark Matter Substructure and Galactic Disks I: Morphological Signatures of Hierarchical Satellite Accretion
• A Complete Spectroscopic Survey of the Milky Way Satellite Segue 1: The Darkest Galaxy
• Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey
• The stellar halo of the Galaxy
• The Origin of the Bifurcation in the Sagittarius Stream
• Internal Kinematics of the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
• Comparing the properties of local globular cluster systems: implications for the formation of the Galactic halo
• Structure Finding in Cosmological Simulations: The State of Affairs
• The globular cluster system of NGC 1399 V. dynamics of the cluster system out to 80 kpc
• Building up the globular cluster system of the Milky Way. The contribution of the Sagittarius galaxy
• Deciphering The Last Major Invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy
• Machine-Learned Identification of RR Lyrae Stars from Sparse, Multi-band Data: the PS1 Sample
• Photometry and the Metallicity Distribution of the Outer Halo of M31
• APOGEE Chemical Abundance Patterns of the Massive Milky Way Satellites
• Blue horizontal branch stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: I. Sample selection and structure in the Galactic halo
• Dynamical Relics of the Ancient Galactic Halo
• Tracing out the Northern Tidal Stream of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheoridal Galaxy
• The chemical characterisation of halo substructure in the Milky Way based on APOGEE
• Tidal Tails Test the Equivalence Principle in the Dark Sector
• The Fall of a Giant. Chemical evolution of Enceladus, alias the Gaia Sausage
• The origin of galactic metal-rich stellar halo components with highly eccentric orbits
• Kinematics of the old stellar population at the Galactic Center
• New insights on the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy from SDSS: a larger radius and no tidal tails
• The phase-space structure of cold dark-matter halos: Insights into the Galactic halo
• Simple dynamical models of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy
• Mismatch and Misalignment: Dark Haloes and Satellites of Disc Galaxies
• A spectroscopic confirmation of the Bootes II dwarf spheroidal
• The Sgr dSph hosts a metal-rich population
• On the kinematic detection of accreted streams in the Gaia era: a cautionary tale
• Mapping the Galactic Halo VIII: Quantifying substructure
• Discovery of a Giant Stellar Tidal Stream Around the Disk Galaxy NGC 4013
• Tidal stripping and the structure of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group
• Asymmetries in the inner regions of LCDM haloes
• Stellar Streams and Clouds in the Galactic Halo
• Anomalous Flux Ratios in Gravitational Lenses: For or Against CDM?
• On the identification of merger debris in the {\it Gaia} Era
• galstreams: A Library of Milky Way Stellar Stream Footprints and Tracks
• Milky Way Mass and Potential Recovery Using Tidal Streams in a Realistic Halo
• Tidal streams in the Galactic halo: Evidence for the Sagittarius northern stream or traces of a new nearby dwarf galaxy
• Effect of halo modelling on WIMP exclusion limits
• APOGEE Chemical Abundances of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
• The K giant stars from the LAMOST survey data I: identification, metallicity, and distance
• Are Great Disks Defined by Satellite Galaxies in Milky-Way Type Halos Rare in $\Lambda$CDM model?
• Mapping the Galactic Halo. V. Sgr dSph Tidal Debris 60 degrees from the Main Body
• Fourteen candidate RR Lyrae star streams in the inner Galaxy
• A Young Blue Tidal Stream in NGC 5128
• Generation of galactic disc warps due to intergalactic accretion flows onto the disc
• Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars VIII: The Extended Structure of the Sculptor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
• The SDSS-2MASS-WISE Ten Dimensional Stellar Color Locus
• Chemical abundances in the nucleus of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy
• The tidal trail of NGC205?
• Tracing the Sgr Stream with 2MASS. Detection of Stream stars around Outer Halo Globular Clusters
• Blue horizontal branch stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: II. Kinematics of the Galactic halo
• Kinematics and simulations of the stellar stream in the halo of the Umbrella Galaxy
• Signatures of Hierarchical Clustering in Dark Matter Detection Experiments
• Spectroscopic Survey of the Galaxy with Gaia II. The expected science yield from the Radial Velocity Spectrometer
• The $>100$ kpc Distant Spur of the Sagittarius Stream and the Outer Virgo Overdensity, as Seen in PS1 RR Lyrae Stars
• Dark Shards: velocity substructure from Gaia and direct searches for dark matter
• Lessons from the Auriga discs: The hunt for the Milky Way's ex-situ disc is not yet over
• Modeling Tidal Streams in evolving dark matter halos
• StarGO: A New Method to Identify the Galactic Origins of Halo Stars
• The Stellar Halo of the Galaxy is Tilted & Doubly Broken
• Signatures of LCDM substructure in tidal debris
• The early-type dwarf galaxy population of the Fornax cluster
• The Virgo stellar over-density: Mapping the infall of the Sagittarius tidal stream onto the Milky Way disk
• An HST/ACS investigation of the spatial and chemical structure and sub-structure of NGC 891, a Milky Way analogue
• Quantifying the Stellar Halo's Response to the LMC's Infall with Spherical Harmonics
• A detailed study of Andromeda XIX, an extreme local analogue of ultra diffuse galaxies
• The Structure of the Sagittarius Stellar Stream as Traced by Blue Horizontal Branch Stars
• Searches for gamma-ray lines and `pure WIMP' spectra from Dark Matter annihilations in dwarf galaxies with H.E.S.S
• Probing the nature of dark matter with accreted globular cluster streams
• Stellar halo streams in the Solar neighbourhood
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey. IV. NGC 4216: A Bombarded Spiral in the Virgo Cluster
• No evidence for internal rotation in the remnant core of the Sagittarius dwarf
• Nonlinear Color-Metallicity Relations of Globular Clusters. III. On the Discrepancy in Metallicity between Globular Cluster Systems and their Parent Elliptical Galaxies
• A Pan-STARRS1 View of the Bifurcated Sagittarius Stream
• The Mass of the Milky Way from the H3 Survey
• Blue Horizontal Branch Stars in the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy
• A wide-field photometric survey for extratidal tails around five metal-poor globular clusters in the Galactic halo
• Constraining the Milky Way Halo Shape Using Thin Streams
• The stellar population of NGC5634. A globular cluster in the Sagittarius dSph Stream?
• Cool carbon stars in the halo: a new survey based on 2MASS
• Extended HI spiral structure and the figure rotation of triaxial dark halos
• The highest-speed local dark matter particles come from the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The INT/WFC survey of the Monoceros Ring: Accretion origin or Galactic Anomaly?
• Constraining Satellite Galaxy Stellar Mass Loss and Predicting Intrahalo Light I: Framework and Results at Low Redshift
• Detection of a distinct metal-poor stellar halo in the early-type galaxy NGC 3115
• Tracing Kinematic and Chemical Properties of Sagittarius Stream by K-Giants, M-Giants, and BHB stars
• Phase-Space Structure of Dark-Matter Haloes: Scale-Invariant PDF Driven by Substructure
• The Complexity of the Cetus Stream Unveiled from the Fusion of STREAMFINDER and StarGO
• The Northern wraps of the Sagittarius Stream as traced by Red Clump stars: distances, intrinsic widths and stellar densities
• Disruption of a Dwarf Galaxy Under Strong Shocking: The Origin of omega Centauri
• On the genealogy of the Orphan Stream
• The Sagittarius stream in Gaia eDR3 and the origin of the bifurcations
• The Cosmic Hunt for Members in the Outskirts of Ultra Faint Dwarf Galaxies: Ursa Major I, Coma Berenices, and Boötes I
• The Disk and Extraplanar Environment of NGC 247
• Streams Going Notts: The tidal debris finder comparison project
• Revealing the Complicated Story of the Cetus Stream with StarGO
• Maximum Likelihood Fitting of Tidal Streams With Application to the Sagittarius Dwarf Tidal Tails
• Phase-space correlation in stellar streams of the Milky Way halo: The clash of Kshir and GD-1
• Is NGC 5824 the Core of the Progenitor of the Cetus Stream?
• Surveying the Inner Halo of the Galaxy with 2MASS-Selected Horizontal Branch Candidates
• The Stellar Content and Star Formation History of the late-type spiral galaxy NGC 300 from Hubble Space Telescope observations
• HST/ACS colour-magnitude diagrams of M31 globular clusters
• Solo Dwarfs I: Survey introduction and first results for the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy
• The IGIMF and other IMFs in dSphs: the case of Sagittarius
• The Century Survey Galactic Halo Project I: Stellar Spectral Analysis
• Elemental Abundances in M31: Gradients in the Giant Stellar Stream
• Identifying Galactic Halo Substructure in 6D Phase-space Using $\sim$13,000 LAMOST K Giants
• Detecting Thin Stellar Streams in External Galaxies: Resolved Stars & Integrated Light
• APOGEE spectroscopic evidence for chemical anomalies in dwarf galaxies: The case of M~54 and Sagittarius
• The clusters Abell~222 and Abell~223: a multi-wavelength view
• Phase-space Properties and Chemistry of the Sagittarius Stellar Stream Down to the Extremely Metal-poor ($[Fe/H]\lesssim -3$) Regime
• Baryons Shaping Dark Matter Haloes
• On the relevance of chaos for halo stars in the Solar Neighbourhood
• The evolution of streams in a time-dependent potential
• An SiO Maser Search off the Galactic Plane
• Chemical Abundances of Planetary Nebulae in the Substructures of M31
• Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars III: First Results from the Grid Giant Star Survey and Discovery of a Possible Nearby Sagittarius Tidal Structure in Virgo
• Update on the Cetus Polar Stream and its Progenitor
• Hidden in the Haystack: Low-luminosity globular clusters towards the Milky Way bulge
• Gamma-Ray Dark Matter Searches in Milky Way Satellites -- A Comparative Review of Data Analysis Methods and Current Results
• A Deep Proper-Motion Survey in Kapteyn Selected Areas: I. Survey Description and First Results for Stars in the Tidal Tail of Sagittarius and in the Monoceros Ring
• Geometrodynamical Distances to the Galaxy's Hydrogen Streams
• Keck Spectroscopy of the Coma Cluster Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy Y358: Dynamical Mass in a Wider Context
• Prospects for a Dark Matter annihilation signal towards the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy with ground based Cherenkov telescopes
• Unearthing Foundations of a Cosmic Cathedral: Searching the Stars for M33's Halo
• Finding halo streams with a pencil-beam survey: new wraps in the Sagittarius stream
• An extended stellar halo discovered in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal using Gaia EDR3
• A portrait of the Vast Polar Structure as a young phenomenon: hints from its member satellites
• The Millennium Galaxy Catalogue: Star counts and the Structure of the Galactic Stellar Halo
• Absolute Proper Motions to B~22.5: V. Detection of Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Debris in the Direction of the Galactic Anticenter
• Signatures of star streams in the phase space distribution of nearby halo stars
• First SDO/AIA Observation of Solar Prominence Formation Following an Eruption: Magnetic Dips and Sustained Condensation and Drainage
• The Pristine survey XVIII: C-19: Tidal debris of a dark matter-dominated globular cluster?
• Dark matter substructures affect dark matter-electron scattering in xenon-based direct detection experiments
• The red extended structure of IC10, the nearest blue compact galaxy
• A Spatial Characterization of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy Tidal Tails
• The Dynamical Evolution of Substructure
• Spectroscopic Observations of Planetary Nebulae in the Northern Spur of M31
• Chemical Abundances of Planetary Nebulae in the Substructures of M31 -- II. The Extended Sample and A Comparison Study with the Outer-disk Group
• On the relevance of chaos for halo stars in the solar neighbourhood II
• Triggering the Formation of Halo Globular Clusters with Galaxy Outflows
• Red Supergiants in the Disk of M81: Tracing the Spatial Distribution of Star Formation 25 Million Years in the Past
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey. XIX. Tomography of Milky Way Substructures in the NGVS Footprint
• XMM-Newton observation of a sample of four close dSph galaxies
• Member stars of the GD1 tidal stream from the SDSS, LAMOST and Gaia surveys
• Main Sequence Star Populations in the Virgo Overdensity Region
• NGC 147, NGC 185 and CassII: a genetic approach to orbital properties, star formation and tidal debris
• Variation in the Stellar Mass Function Along Stellar Streams
• Mapping the Asymmetric Thick Disk: II Distance, Size and Mass of the Hercules Thick Disk Cloud
• Kinematics and Metallicity of Red Giant Branch Stars in the Northeast Shelf of M31
• Two Portions of Sagittarius Stream in the LAMOST Complete Spectroscopic Survey of Pointing Area at Southern Galactic Cap
• A Pristine-UNIONS view on the Galaxy: Kinematics of the distant spur feature of the Sagittarius stream traced by Blue Horizontal Branch stars
• Revisit NGC 5466 Tidal Stream with $Gaia$, SDSS/SEGUE and LAMOST
• Is High-Velocity Cloud Complex C Associated with the Galactic Warp?
• An Orbit Fit to Likely Hermus Stream Stars
• The Origin of the Metal-Poor Common Proper Motion Pair HD 134439/134440: Insights from New Elemental Abundances
• Introduction to Tidal Streams
• Studying the dwarf galaxies in nearby groups of galaxies: spectroscopic and photometric data
• Unveiling Galactic substructures with M Giant stars: A kinematic and chemical study based on LAMOST DR9, Gaia DR3 and APOGEE DR17
• AT 2016dah and AT 2017fyp: the first classical novae discovered within a tidal stream
• Resolving the extended stellar halos of nearby galaxies: the wide-field PISCeS survey
• Modelling gas around galaxy pairs and groups using the Q0107 quasar triplet
• The mass and redshift dependence of halo star clustering
• Rise of the forsaken relics: connecting present-day stellar streams and phase-mixed galaxies to the Epoch of Reionization
• A statistical analysis of the late-type stellar content in the Andromeda halo
• Identification of a dwarf galaxy stream in Gaia, and its possible association with the VPOS structure
• COSTA: the COld STream finder Algorithm. Searching for kinematical substructures in the phase space of discrete tracers
• Measuring Dark Matter Distribution in Directional Direct Detection
• Search for Stellar Streams Based on Data from the RAVE5 and Gaia TGAS Catalogues
• Globular Clusters in the Sagittarius stream. Revising members and candidates with Gaia DR2
• Revisiting a disky origin for the faint branch of the Sagittarius stellar stream