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Title: The First Tidally Disrupted Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy?: A Spectroscopic Analysis of the Tucana III Stream

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
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We present a spectroscopic study of the tidal tails and core of the Milky Way satellite Tucana III, collectively referred to as the Tucana III stream, using the 2dF+AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope and the IMACS spectrograph on the Magellan Baade Telescope. In addition to recovering the brightest nine previously known member stars in the Tucana III core, we identify 22 members in the tidal tails. We observe strong evidence for a velocity gradient of over at least 3° on the sky. Based on the continuity in velocity, we confirm that the Tucana III tails are real tidal extensions of Tucana III. The large velocity gradient of the stream implies that Tucana III is likely on a radial orbit. We successfully obtain metallicities for four members in the core and 12 members in the tails. We find that members close to the ends of the stream tend to be more metal-poor than members in the core, indicating a possible metallicity gradient between the center of the progenitor halo and its edge. The spread in metallicity suggests that the progenitor of the Tucana III stream is likely a dwarf galaxy rather than a star cluster. Furthermore, we find that with the precise photometry of the Dark Energy Survey data, there is a discernible color offset between metal-rich disk stars and metal-poor stream members. This metallicity-dependent color offers a more efficient method to recognize metal-poor targets and will increase the selection efficiency of stream members for future spectroscopic follow-up programs on stellar streams.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
DES Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-07CH11359; AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1479702
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1484469; OSTI ID: 1490354
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1804.07761; FERMILAB-PUB-18-107-AE-PPD
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 866, Issue 1; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 50 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Milky way mass and potential recovery using tidal streams in a realistic halo text January 2014
A sharper view of Pal 5's tails: Discovery of stream perturbations with a novel non-parametric technique text January 2017
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The Hercules satellite: a stellar stream in the Milky Way halo? text January 2010
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On the Efficiency of the Tidal Stirring Mechanism for the Origin of Dwarf Spheroidals: Dependence on the Orbital and Structural Parameters of the Progenitor Disky Dwarfs text January 2010
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The Fourth US Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC4) text January 2012
Segue 2: The Least Massive Galaxy text January 2013
The Near Infrared Ca II Triplet as Metallicity Indicator: II Extension to extremely metal-poor metallicity regimes text January 2013
A bag of tricks: Using proper motions of Galactic stars to identify the Hercules ultra-faint dwarf galaxy members text January 2014
Galactic Tides and the Shape and Orientation of Dwarf Galaxy Satellites text January 2014
Properties of Dark Subhaloes from Gaps in Tidal Streams text January 2015
The Phoenix stream: a cold stream in the Southern hemisphere text January 2015
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A sharper view of Pal 5's tails: Discovery of stream perturbations with a novel non-parametric technique text January 2016
The shape of the inner Milky Way halo from observations of the Pal 5 and GD-1 stellar streams text January 2016
An R-process enhanced star in the dwarf galaxy Tucana III text January 2017
Forward Global Photometric Calibration of the Dark Energy Survey text January 2017
Feeling the pull, a study of natural Galactic accelerometers. II: kinematics and mass of the delicate stellar stream of the Palomar 5 globular cluster text January 2017
Mapping the Tidal Disruption of the Hercules Dwarf: A Wide-Field DECam Imaging Search for RR Lyrae Stars text January 2017
The most metal-poor Galactic globular cluster: the first spectroscopic observations of ESO280-SC06 text January 2018
The Galactic disk mass-budget : I. stellar mass-function and density text January 2001
How Lumpy is the Milky Way's Dark Matter Halo? text January 2001
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Cited By (14)

Gaia DR2 proper motions of dwarf galaxies within 420 kpc : Orbits, Milky Way mass, tidal influences, planar alignments, and group infall journal November 2018
How low does it go? Too few Galactic satellites with standard reionization quenching journal July 2019
Can tides disrupt cold dark matter subhaloes? journal December 2019
The Origin of r -process Enhanced Metal-poor Halo Stars In Now-destroyed Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxies journal February 2019
r -process Enrichment of the Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxies by Fast-merging Double-neutron Stars journal February 2019
Chemical Abundance Analysis of Tucana III, the Second r -process Enhanced Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy journal September 2019
Dynamical Histories of the Crater II and Hercules Dwarf Galaxies journal September 2019
Proper Motions of Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey journal October 2019
Gaia DR 2 and VLT/FLAMES search for new satellites of the LMC journal March 2019
The southern stellar stream spectroscopic survey (S5): Overview, target selection, data reduction, validation, and early science journal October 2019
Proper Motions of Milky Way Ultra-faint Satellites with Gaia DR2 × DES DR1 journal April 2019
Signatures of Tidal Disruption in Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxies: A Combined HST , Gaia , and MMT/Hectochelle Study of Leo V journal October 2019
Dynamical Histories of the Crater II and Hercules Dwarf Galaxies text January 2019
Signatures of Tidal Disruption in Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxies: A Combined HST, Gaia, and MMT/Hectochelle Study of Leo V text January 2019

Linked Research (1)

Figures / Tables (12)

Figure 1(p. 5)figure Figure 1
Figure 2(p. 7)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 8)figure Figure 3
Figure 4(p. 9)figure Figure 4
Table 1(p. 9)table Table 1
Figure 5(p. 10)figure Figure 5
Figure 6(p. 10)figure Figure 6
Figure 7(p. 11)figure Figure 7
Figure 8(p. 12)figure Figure 8
Figure 9(p. 15)figure Figure 9
Table 2(p. 21)table Table 2
Table 3(p. 22)table Table 3

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
dark matter
galaxies: dwarf
galaxies: individual (Tucana III)
Local Group
stars: abundances