Timing the Early Assembly of the Milky Way with the H3 Survey
Ana Bonaca, Charlie Conroy, Phillip A. Cargile, Rohan P. Naidu, Benjamin D. Johnson, Dennis Zaritsky, Yuan-Sen Ting, Nelson Caldwell, Jiwon Jesse Han, Pieter van Dokkum
Abstract
Abstract The archeological record of stars in the Milky Way opens a uniquely detailed window into the early formation and assembly of galaxies. Here we use 11,000 main-sequence turn-off stars with well-measured ages, , , and orbits from the H3 Survey and Gaia to time the major events in the early Galaxy. Located beyond the Galactic plane, , this sample contains three chemically distinct groups: a low-metallicity population, and low- α and high- α groups at higher metallicity. The age and orbit distributions of these populations show that (1) the high- α group, which includes both disk stars and the in situ halo, has a star formation history independent of eccentricity that abruptly truncated 8.3 ± 0.1 Gyr ago ( z ≃ 1); (2) the low-metallicity population, which we identify as the accreted stellar halo, is on eccentric orbits and its star formation truncated Gyr ago ( z ≃ 2); (3) the low- α population is primarily on low-eccentricity orbits and the bulk of its stars formed less than 8 Gyr ago. These results suggest a scenario in which the Milky Way accreted a satellite galaxy at z ≈ 2 that merged with the early disk by z ≈ 1. This merger truncated star formation in the early high- α disk and perturbed a fraction of that disk onto halo-like orbits. The merger enabled the formation of a chemically distinct, low- α disk at z ≲ 1. The lack of any stars on halo-like orbits at younger ages indicates that this event was the last significant disturbance to the Milky Way disk.