Star-Formation Histories, Abundances, and Kinematics of Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Group

By E. Tolstoy, Vanessa Hill, M. Tosi. 2009

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Within the Local Universe galaxies can be studied in great detail star by star, and here we review the results of quantitative studies in nearby dwarf galaxies. The color-magnitude diagram synthesis method is well established as the most accurate way to determine star-formation histories of galaxies back to the earliest times. This approach received a large boost from the exceptional data sets that wide-field CCD imagers on the ground and the Hubble Space Telescope could provide. Spectroscopic studies using large ground-based telescopes such as VLT, Magellan, Keck, and HET have allowed the determination of abundances and kinematics for significant samples of stars in nearby dwarf galaxies. These studies have shown how the properties of stellar populations can vary spatially and temporally. This leads to important constraints to theories of galaxy formation and evolution. The combination of spectroscopy and imaging and what they have taught us about dwarf galaxy formation and evolution is the aim of this r...

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/836fba0b2e1e7a321132ad2a35bc9fcbf7e47fb1

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Citations in the corpus

How to Measure Galaxy Star Formation Histories. II. Nonparametric Models (2018, background): “Measuring the histories of lowmass dwarf galaxies provides insights into physics and timing of reionization (Tolstoy et al. 2009; Weisz et al. 2014a,b).”
FUNDAMENTAL PARAMETERS AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF ARCTURUS (2011, background): “For example, their [Mg/Fe] and [Ca/Fe] abundance ratios should be significantly lower than those observed in the solar neighborhood (e.g., Venn et al. 2004; Tolstoy et al. 2009).”
FIRE in the field: Simulating the threshold of galaxy formation (2016, background): “…likely to serve as sensitive probes of reionization-induced feedback, which may contribute to the diversity of star formation histories observed for low-mass galaxies (e.g., Tolstoy et al. 2009; Skillman et al. 2014; Weisz et al. 2014; Brown et al. 2014; Gallart et al. 2015; Skillman et al. 2016).”
THE ARECIBO LEGACY FAST ALFA SURVEY. X. THE H i MASS FUNCTION AND FROM THE 40% ALFALFA SURVEY (2010, background): “…very nearby, and the dwarf galaxies in the Local Group have been shown to have great diversity in their star formation histories and metallicities (Tolstoy et al. 2009; Grebel & Gallagher 2004), with some galaxies losing gas and ceasing star formation early while others have undergone this…”
Detailed abundances of a large sample of giant stars in M 54 and in the Sagittarius nucleus (2010, background): “1 in Tolstoy et al. 2009); – they have similar total mass.”
THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG COMPACT STELLAR SYSTEMS: A FRESH VIEW OF ULTRACOMPACT DWARFS (2011, background): “There is then an apparent gap between galaxies and star clusters, which is now seen to be a diagonal region rather than a simple size gap (cf the “Shapley line” of van den Bergh 2008; and also Gilmore et al. 2007; Forbes et al. 2008; Tolstoy et al. 2009; Misgeld & Hilker 2011).”
A GALEX ULTRAVIOLET IMAGING SURVEY OF GALAXIES IN THE LOCAL VOLUME (2010, background): “…is particularly relevant for dwarf galaxies, which generally appear to have fluctuating or bursty star formation histories (e.g., Weisz et al. 2008; Tolstoy et al. 2009 and references therein), because it implies that the fluctuations do not go to zero for durations comparable to the lifetimes of…”
A METHOD FOR MEASURING (SLOPES OF) THE MASS PROFILES OF DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXIES (2011, background): “8) as well as old (age& 10 Gyr) stellar populations (Dolphin et al. 2005; Tolstoy et al. 2009).”
HIGH-RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY OF EXTREMELY METAL-POOR STARS IN THE LEAST EVOLVED GALAXIES: URSA MAJOR II and COMA BERENICES (2009, background): “…more luminous dSphs (e.g., Shetrone et al. 2001, 2003; Tolstoy et al. 2003; Sadakane et al. 200415; Venn et al. 2004; Geisler et al. 2007, and see Tolstoy et al. 2009 for a recent review on this topic), the abundances found in our two ultra-faint dwarf galaxies generally agree with those of MW…”
Scaled solar tracks and isochrones in a large region of the Z-Y plane. II. From 2.5 to 20 solar masses (2009, background): “For nearby dwarf galaxies, the modern observational picture is that their populationsare in general slightly alpha-depleted for [Fe/H]> −1.0, becom- ing alpha-enhanced only at very low metallicities (see Fig.11 in Tolstoy et al. 2009, and references therein).”
The current status of galaxy formation (2012, background): “The best example may be the Carina dwarf where three distinct episodes of star formation are found (Tolstoy et al., 2009).”
The GALAH survey: scientific motivation (2015, background): “Stars with such particular light-element abundance patterns are observed mostly within globular clusters, but not generally in the field (e.g. Gratton et al. 2000) or in Local Group dwarf galaxies (e.g. Tolstoy et al. 2009).”