Constraints on Galaxy Formation from Stars in the Far Outer Disk of M31

Abstract

Numerical simulations of galaxy formation within the cold dark matter (CDM) hierarchical clustering framework are unable to produce large disk galaxies without invoking some form of feedback to suppress gas cooling and collapse to a redshift of unity or below. An important observational consequence of delaying the epoch of disk formation until relatively recent times is that the stellar populations in the extended disk should of be predominantly young-to-intermediate age. We use a deep HST/WFPC2 archival pointing to investigate the mean age and metallicity of the stellar population in a disk-dominated field at 30 kpc along the major axis of M31. Our analysis of the color-magnitude-diagram reveals the dominant population to have significant mean age (>~8 Gyr) and a moderately-high mean metallicity ([Fe/H]~-0.7); tentative evidence is also presented for a trace population of ancient (>10 Gyr) metal-poor stars. These characteristics are unexpected in CDM models and we discuss the possible implications of this result, as well as alternative interpretations.

Accepted to ApJ Letters, 4 pages, uses emulateapj5.sty. Minor revisions/additions to previously posted version

References in corpus (3)

• A giant stream of metal-rich stars in the halo of the galaxy M31
• Photometry and the Metallicity Distribution of the Outer Halo of M31
• The Evolution of Stellar Exponential Discs

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