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The star formation and gas content of satellite galaxies around the Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda (M31) are depleted relative to more isolated galaxies in the Local Group (LG) at fixed stellar mass. We explore the environmental regulation of gas content and quenching of star formation in $z=0$ galaxies at $M*=10^{5-10}\rm{M}_{\odot}$ around 14 MW-mass hosts from the FIRE-2 simulations. Lower-mass satellites ($M*\lesssim10^7\rm{M}_{\odot}$) are mostly quiescent and higher-mass satellites ($M*\gtrsim10^8\rm{M}_{\odot}$) are mostly star-forming, with intermediate-mass satellites ($M*\approx10^{7-8}\rm{M}_{\odot}$) split roughly equally between quiescent and star-forming. Hosts with more gas in their circumgalactic medium have a higher quiescent fraction of massive satellites ($M*=10^{8-9}\rm{M}_{\odot}$). We find no significant dependence on isolated versus paired (LG-like) host environments, and the quiescent fractions of satellites around MW-mass and LMC-mass hosts from the FIRE-2 simulations are remarkably similar. Environmental effects that lead to quenching can also occur as preprocessing in low-mass groups prior to MW infall. Lower-mass satellites typically quenched before MW infall as central galaxies or rapidly during infall into a low-mass group or a MW-mass galaxy. Most intermediate- to high-mass quiescent satellites have experienced $\geq1-2$ pericentre passages ($\approx2.5-5$ Gyr) within a MW-mass halo. Most galaxies with $M*\gtrsim10^{6.5}\rm{M}_{\odot}$ did not quench before falling into a host, indicating a possible upper mass limit for isolated quenching. The simulations reproduce the average trend in the LG quiescent fraction across the full range of satellite stellar masses. Though the simulations are consistent with the SAGA survey's quiescent fraction at $M*\gtrsim10^8\rm{M}_{\odot}$, they do not generally reproduce SAGA's turnover at lower masses., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, + appendices. Accepted by MNRAS

The study of outer halo globular cluster (GC) populations can give insight into galaxy merging, GC accretion, and the origin of GCs. We use archival Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) data in concert with space-based GALEX, IRAC, and Gaia EDR3 data to select candidate GCs in the outer halo of the M81 group for confirmation and future study. We use a small sample of previously discovered GCs to tune our selection criteria, finding that bright already-known GCs in the M81 group have sizes that are typically slightly larger than the Subaru PSF in our fields. In the optical bands, GCs appear to have colours that are only slightly different from stars. The inclusion of archival IRAC data yields dramatic improvements in colour separation, as the long wavelength baseline aids somewhat in the separation from stars and clearly separates GCs from many compact background galaxies. We show that some previously spectroscopically identified GCs in the M81 group are instead foreground stars or background galaxies. GCs close to M82 have radial velocities, suggesting that they fell into the M81 group along with M82. The overall M81 GC luminosity function is similar to the Milky Way and M31. M81’s outer halo GCs are similar to the Milky Way in their metallicities and numbers, and much less numerous than M31’s more metal-rich outer halo GC population. These properties reflect differences in the three galaxies’ merger histories, highlighting the possibility of using outer halo GCs to trace merger history in larger samples of galaxies.

Milky Way-mass galaxies in the FIRE-2 simulations demonstrate two main modes of star formation. At high redshifts star formation occurs in a series of short and intense bursts, while at low redshifts star formation proceeds at a steady rate with a transition from one mode to another at times ranging from 3 to 7 Gyr ago for different galaxies. We analyse how the mode of star formation affects iron and alpha-element abundance. We find that the early bursty regime imprints a measurable pattern in stellar elemental abundances in the form of a "sideways chevron" shape on the [Fe/H] - [O/Fe] plane and the scatter in [O/Fe] at a given stellar age is higher than when a galaxy is in the steady regime. That suggests that the evolution of [O/Fe] scatter with age provides an estimate of the end of the bursty phase. We investigate the feasibility of observing of this effect by adding mock observational errors to a simulated stellar survey and find that the transition between the bursty and steady phase should be detectable in the Milky Way, although larger observational uncertainties make the transition shallower. We apply our method to observations of the Milky Way from the Second APOKASC Catalog and estimate that the transition to steady star formation in the Milky Way happened 7-8 Gyrs ago, earlier than transition times measured in the simulations., 15 pages; Accepted 17 January 2023 in MNRAS

We examine the prevalence, longevity, and causes of planes of satellite dwarf galaxies, as observed in the Local Group. We use 14 Milky Way/Andromeda-(MW/M31) mass host galaxies from the FIRE-2 simulations. We select the 14 most massive satellites by stellar mass within 300 kpc of each host and correct for incompleteness from the foreground galactic disc when comparing to the MW. We find that MW-like planes as spatially thin and/or kinematically coherent as observed are uncommon, but they do exist in our simulations. Spatially thin planes occur in 1-2 per cent of snapshots during $z=0-0.2$, and kinematically coherent planes occur in 5 per cent of snapshots. These planes are generally transient, surviving for less than 500 Myr. However, if we select hosts with an LMC-like satellite near first pericentre, the fraction of snapshots with MW-like planes increases dramatically to 7-16 per cent, with lifetimes of 0.7-1 Gyr, likely because of group accretion of satellites. We find that M31's satellite distribution is much more common: M31's satellites lie within about 1 sigma of the simulation median for every plane metric we consider. We find no significant difference in average satellite planarity for isolated hosts versus hosts in LG-like pairs. Baryonic and dark matter-only simulations exhibit similar levels of planarity, even though baryonic subhaloes are less centrally concentrated within their host haloes. We conclude that planes of satellites are not a strong challenge to LCDM cosmology., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures. Main results in Figures 2 and 7. Accepted by MNRAS

We characterize the 3-D spatial variations of [Fe/H], [Mg/H], and [Mg/Fe] in stars at the time of their formation, across 11 simulated Milky Way (MW)- and M31-mass galaxies in the FIRE-2 simulations, to inform initial conditions for chemical tagging. The overall scatter in [Fe/H] within a galaxy decreased with time until $\approx 7$ Gyr ago, after which it increased to today: this arises from a competition between a reduction of azimuthal scatter and a steepening of the radial gradient in abundance over time. The radial gradient is generally negative, and it steepened over time from an initially flat gradient $\gtrsim 12$ Gyr ago. The strength of the present-day abundance gradient does not correlate with when the disk `settled'; instead, it best correlates with the radial velocity dispersion within the galaxy. The strength of azimuthal variation is nearly independent of radius, and the 360 degree scatter decreased over time, from $\lesssim 0.17$ dex at $t_{\rm lb} = 11.6$ Gyr to $\sim 0.04$ dex at present day. Consequently, stars at $t_{\rm lb} \gtrsim 8$ Gyr formed in a disk with primarily azimuthal scatter in abundances. All stars formed in a vertically homogeneous disk, $\Delta$[Fe/H] $\leq 0.02$ dex within $1$ kpc of the galactic midplane, with the exception of the young stars in the inner $\approx 4$ kpc at $z \sim 0$. These results generally agree with our previous analysis of gas-phase elemental abundances, which reinforces the importance of cosmological disk evolution and azimuthal scatter in the context of stellar chemical tagging. We provide analytic fits to our results for use in chemical-tagging analyses., Comment: 22 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We investigate stellar elemental abundance patterns at z = 0 in 8 low-mass (M_* = 10^6 - 10^9 M_sun) galaxies in the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE-2) cosmological simulations. Using magnesium (Mg) as a representative alpha-element, we explore stellar abundance patterns in [Mg/Fe] versus [Fe/H], which follow an overall monotonic trend that evolved slowly over time. Beyond this, we explore 3 notable secondary features in enrichment (found in three different case-study galaxies) that arise from a galaxy merger or bursty star formation. First, we observe a secondary track with a lower [Mg/Fe] than the main trend. At z = 0, stars from this track are predominantly found within 2-6 kpc of the center; they were accreted in a 1:3 total-mass-ratio merger ~ 0.4 Gyr ago. Second, we find a distinct elemental bi-modality that forms following a strong burst in star formation in a galaxy at t_lookback ~ 10 Gyr. This burst quenched star formation for ~ 0.66 Gyr, allowing Ia supernovae to enrich the system with iron before star formation resumed. Third, we examine stripes in enrichment that run roughly orthogonal to the dominant [Mg/Fe] versus [Fe/H] trend; these stripes correspond to short bursts of star formation during which core-collapse supernovae enrich the surrounding medium with Mg (and Fe) on short timescales. If observed, these features would substantiate the utility of elemental abundances in revealing the assembly and star formation histories of dwarf galaxies. We explore the observability of these features for upcoming spectroscopic studies. Our results show that precise measurements of elemental abundance patterns can reveal critical events in the formation histories of low-mass galaxies., v1: 14 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to MNRAS on Oct. 18th, 2021 | v2: 15 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by MNRAS on Mar. 17th, 2022

Stellar streams record the accretion history of their host galaxy. We present a set of simulated streams from disrupted dwarf galaxies in 13 cosmological simulations of Milky Way (MW)-mass galaxies from the FIRE-2 suite at $z=0$, including 7 isolated Milky Way-mass systems and 6 hosts resembling the MW-M31 pair (full dataset at: https://flathub.flatironinstitute.org/sapfire). In total, we identify 106 simulated stellar streams, with no significant differences in the number of streams and masses of their progenitors between the isolated and paired environments. We resolve simulated streams with stellar masses ranging from $\sim 5\times10^5$ up to $\sim 10^{9} M_\odot$, similar to the mass range between the Orphan and Sagittarius streams in the MW. We confirm that present-day simulated satellite galaxies are good proxies for stellar stream progenitors, with similar properties including their stellar mass function, velocity dispersion, [Fe/H] and [$\alpha$/H] evolution tracks, and orbital distribution with respect to the galactic disk plane. Each progenitor's lifetime is marked by several important timescales: its infall, star-formation quenching, and stream-formation times. We show that the ordering of these timescales is different between progenitors with stellar masses higher and lower than $\sim 2\times10^6 M_\odot$. Finally, we show that the main factor controlling the rate of phase-mixing, and therefore fading, of tidal streams from satellite galaxies in MW-mass hosts is non-adiabatic evolution of the host potential. Other factors commonly used to predict phase-mixing timescales, such as progenitor mass and orbital circularity, show virtually no correlation with the number of dynamical times required for a stream to become phase-mixed., Comment: 26 pages, 19 figures, public dataset available at https://flathub.flatironinstitute.org/sapfire

NGC 300 is a low-mass disk galaxy in the Sculptor group. In the literature, it has been identified as a pure exponential disk galaxy, as its luminosity profile could be well fitted with a single exponential law over many disk scale lengths (Type I). We investigate the stellar luminosity distribution of NGC 300 using $Hubble$ $Space$ $Telescope$ (HST) archive data, reaching farther and deeper than any other previous studies. Color magnitude diagrams show a significant population of old red giant branch (RGB) stars in all fields out to $R\sim19$ kpc ($32'$), as well as younger populations in the inner regions. We construct the density profiles of the young, intermediate-aged, and old stellar populations. We find two clear breaks in the density profiles of the old RGB and intermediate-aged stars: one down-bending (Type II) at $R\sim5.9$ kpc, and another up-bending (Type III) at $R\sim8.3$ kpc. Moreover, the old RGB stars exhibit a negative radial color gradient with an up-bending at $R\sim8$~kpc, beyond which the stellar populations are uniformly old ($>$7~Gyr) and metal-poor ($\rm[Fe/H] = -1.6^{+0.2}_{-0.4}$ dex). The outer stellar component at $R\gtrapprox8$ kpc is, therefore, well separated from the inner disk in terms of the stellar density and stellar populations. While our results cast doubt on the currently established wisdom that NGC\,300 is a pure exponential disk galaxy, a more detailed survey should be carried out to identify the outskirts as either a disk or a stellar halo., 6 pages, 5 figures, 1 appendix, accepted for publication in A&A Letters

Surveys of the Milky Way (MW) and M31 enable detailed studies of stellar populations across ages and metallicities, with the goal of reconstructing formation histories across cosmic time. These surveys motivate key questions for galactic archaeology in a cosmological context: when did the main progenitor of a MW/M31-mass galaxy form, and what were the galactic building blocks that formed it? We investigate the formation times and progenitor galaxies of MW/M31-mass galaxies using the FIRE-2 cosmological simulations, including 6 isolated MW/M31-mass galaxies and 6 galaxies in Local Group (LG)-like pairs at z = 0. We examine main progenitor "formation" based on two metrics: (1) transition from primarily ex-situ to in-situ stellar mass growth and (2) mass dominance compared to other progenitors. We find that the main progenitor of a MW/M31-mass galaxy emerged typically at z ~ 3-4 (11.6-12.2 Gyr ago), while stars in the bulge region (inner 2 kpc) at z = 0 formed primarily in a single main progenitor at z < 5 (< 12.6 Gyr ago). Compared with isolated hosts, the main progenitors of LG-like paired hosts emerged significantly earlier (��z ~ 2, ��t ~ 1.6 Gyr), with ~ 4x higher stellar mass at all z > 4 (> 12.2 Gyr ago). This highlights the importance of environment in MW/M31-mass galaxy formation, especially at early times. Overall, about 100 galaxies with M_star > 10^5 M_sun formed a typical MW/M31-mass system. Thus, surviving satellites represent a highly incomplete census (by ~ 5x) of the progenitor population., 20 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Intrinsic iron abundance spreads in globular clusters, although usually small, are very common, and are signatures of self enrichment: some stars within the cluster have been enriched by supernova ejecta from other stars within the same cluster. We use the Bailin (2018) self enrichment model to predict the relationship between properties of the protocluster -- its mass and the metallicity of the protocluster gas cloud -- and the final observable properties today -- its current metallicity and the internal iron abundance spread. We apply this model to an updated catalog of Milky Way globular clusters where the initial mass and/or the iron abundance spread is known to reconstruct their initial metallicities. We find that with the exception of the known anomalous bulge cluster Terzan 5 and three clusters strongly suspected to be nuclear star clusters from stripped dwarf galaxies, the model provides a good lens for understanding their iron spreads and initial metallicities. We then use these initial metallicities to construct age-metallicity relations for kinematically-identified major accretion events in the Milky Way's history. We find that using the initial metallicity instead of the current metallicity does not alter the overall picture of the Milky Way's history, since the difference is usually small, but does provide information that can help distinguish which accretion event some individual globular clusters with ambiguous kinematics should be associated with, and points to potential complexity within the accretion events themselves., Accepted for publication in ApJ. Machine readable full version of Table 1 will be uploaded to CDS once full volume/page number is known; until then it is available at http://simulated-galaxies.ua.edu/gcsigpred_table1.txt

Starbursts are finite periods of intense star formation (SF) that can dramatically impact the evolutionary state of a galaxy. Recent results suggest that starbursts in dwarf galaxies last longer and are distributed over more of the galaxy than previously thought, with star formation efficiencies (SFEs) comparable to spiral galaxies, much higher than those typical of non-bursting dwarfs. This difference might be explainable if the starburst mode is externally triggered by gravitational interactions with other nearby systems. We present new, sensitive neutral hydrogen observations of 18 starburst dwarf galaxies, which are part of the STARburst IRregular Dwarf Survey (STARBIRDS) and each were mapped with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and/or Parkes Telescope in order to study the low surface brightness gas distributions, a common tracer for tidal interactions.

We report on the spread of [Fe/H] values in the massive Large Magellanic Cloud cluster NGC1978, recently confirmed to harbor multiple populations of nearly the same age. We used accurate Stromgren photometry of carefully selected cluster red giant branch stars along with a high-dispersion spectroscopy-based calibration of the metallicity-sensitive index m1. Once accounting for the photometry quality, assessed from extensive artificial stars tests to trace the photometric uncertainties as a function of the position to the cluster's center as well as the stellar brightness, and those from the metallicity calibration, we found that NGC1978 exhibits a small metallicity spread of 0.035 dex (+- 0.019-0.023), depending on whether stars with individual sigma[Fe/H] < 0.15 dex or those located in the cluster's outer areas are considered. Such a spread in [Fe/H] is consistent with a cluster formation model with self-enrichment, if mass loss higher than 90 per cent due to stellar evolutionary and galactic tidal effects is assumed. Nevertheless, scenarios where the apparent [Fe/H] variation reflects CN abundance anomalies or less extreme mass loss models with environmentally-dependent self enrichment should not be ruled out., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal

Recent work has shown that Milky Way-mass galaxies display an incredible range of stellar halo properties, yet the origin of this diversity is unclear. The nearby galaxy M81 $-$ currently interacting with M82 and NGC 3077 $-$ sheds unique light on this problem. We present a Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam survey of the resolved stellar populations around M81, revealing M81's stellar halo in never-before-seen detail. We resolve the halo to unprecedented $V$-band equivalent surface brightnesses of 33 mag arcsec$^{-2}$, and produce the first-ever global stellar mass density map for a Milky Way-mass stellar halo outside of the Local Group. Using the minor axis, we confirm M81's halo as one of the lowest mass and metal-poorest known ($M_{\star} \simeq 1.16{\times}10^9 M_{\odot}$, [Fe/H] $\simeq {-}1.2$) $-$ indicating a relatively quiet prior accretion history. Yet, our global halo census finds that tidally unbound material from M82 and NGC 3077 provides a substantial infusion of metal-rich material ($M_{\star} \simeq 5.4{\times}10^8$ $M_{\odot}$, [Fe/H] $\simeq {-}$0.9). We further show that, following the accretion of its massive satellite M82 (and the LMC-like NGC 3077), M81 will host one of the most massive and metal-rich stellar halos in the nearby universe. Thus, the saga of M81: following a passive history, M81's merger with M82 will completely transform its halo from a low-mass, anemic halo rivaling the MW, to a metal-rich behemoth rivaled only by systems such as M31. This dramatic transformation indicates that the observed diversity in stellar halo properties is primarily driven by diversity in the largest mergers these galaxies have experienced., Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, 3 tables, accepted to ApJ

We present an up-to-date catalog of intrinsic iron abundance spreads in the 55 Milky Way globular clusters for which sufficiently precise spectroscopic measurements are available. Our method combines multiple datasets when possible to improve the statistics, taking into account the fact that different methods and instruments can lead to systematically offset metallicities. Only high spectral resolution (R>14,000) studies that measure the equivalent widths of individual iron lines are found to have uncertainties on the metallicities of the individual stars that can be calibrated sufficiently well for the intrinsic dispersion to be separated cleanly from random measurement error. The median intrinsic iron spread is found to be 0.045 dex, which is small but unambiguously measured to be non-zero in most cases. There is large variation between clusters, but more luminous globular clusters, above 10^5 L_sun, have increasingly large iron spreads on average; no trend between iron spread and metallicity is found., ApJS in press

Wu & Peek (2020) predict SDSS-quality spectra based on Pan-STARRS broad-band \textit{grizy} images using machine learning (ML). In this letter, we test their prediction for a unique object, UGC 2885 ("Rubin's galaxy"), the largest and most massive, isolated disk galaxy in the local Universe ($D

We have examined the resolved stellar populations at large galactocentric distances along the minor axis (from 10 kpc up to between 40 and 75 kpc), with limited major axis coverage, of six nearby highly-inclined Milky Way-mass disc galaxies using HST data from the GHOSTS survey. We select red giant branch stars to derive stellar halo density profiles. The projected minor axis density profiles can be approximated by power laws with projected slopes of between $-2$ and $-3.7$ and a diversity of stellar halo masses of $1-6\times 10^{9}M_{\odot}$, or $2-14\%$ of the total galaxy stellar masses. The typical intrinsic scatter around a smooth power law fit is $0.05-0.1$ dex owing to substructure. By comparing the minor and major axis profiles, we infer projected axis ratios $c/a$ at $\sim 25$ kpc between $0.4-0.75$. The GHOSTS stellar haloes are diverse, lying between the extremes charted out by the (rather atypical) haloes of the Milky Way and M31. We find a strong correlation between the stellar halo metallicities and the stellar halo masses. We compare our results with cosmological models, finding good agreement between our observations and accretion-only models where the stellar haloes are formed by the disruption of dwarf satellites. In particular, the strong observed correlation between stellar halo metallicity and mass is naturally reproduced. Low-resolution hydrodynamical models have unrealistically high stellar halo masses. Current high-resolution hydrodynamical models appear to predict stellar halo masses somewhat higher than observed but with reasonable metallicities, metallicity gradients and density profiles., Comment: 26 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We explore the chemical distribution of stars in a simulated galaxy. Using simulations of the same initial conditions but with two different feedback schemes (MUGS and MaGICC), we examine the features of the age-metallicity relation (AMR), and the three-dimensional age-metallicity-[O/Fe] distribution, both for the galaxy as a whole and decomposed into disc, bulge, halo, and satellites. The MUGS simulation, which uses traditional supernova feedback, is replete with chemical substructure. This sub- structure is absent from the MaGICC simulation, which includes early feedback from stellar winds, a modified IMF and more efficient feedback. The reduced amount of substructure is due to the almost complete lack of satellites in MaGICC. We identify a significant separation between the bulge and disc AMRs, where the bulge is considerably more metal-rich with a smaller spread in metallicity at any given time than the disc. Our results suggest, however, that identifying the substructure in observations will require exquisite age resolution, on the order of 0.25 Gyr. Certain satellites show exotic features in the AMR, even forming a 'sawtooth' shape of increasing metallicity followed by sharp declines which correspond to pericentric passages. This fact, along with the large spread in stellar age at a given metallicity, compromises the use of metallicity as an age indicator, although alpha abundance provides a more robust clock at early times. This may also impact algorithms that are used to reconstruct star formation histories from resolved stellar populations, which frequently assume a monotonically-increasing AMR., Comment: 25 pages, 14 Figures, 2 Tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Models of galaxy formation in a cosmological context predict that massive disk galaxies should have structured extended stellar halos. Recent studies in integrated light, however, report a few galaxies, including the nearby disk galaxy M101, that have no measurable stellar halos to the detection limit. We aim to quantify the stellar content and structure of M101's outskirts by resolving its stars. We present the photometry of its stars based on deep F606W and F814W images taken with Hubble Space Telescope as part of the GHOSTS survey. The constructed CMDs of stars reach down to two magnitudes below the tip of the red giant branch. We derived radial number density profiles of the bright red giant branch (RGB) stars. The mean color of the RGB stars at $R \sim$ 40 -- 60 kpc is similar to those of metal-poor globular clusters in the Milky Way. We also derived radial surface brightness profiles using the public image data provided by the Dragonfly team. Both the radial number density and surface brightness profiles were converted to radial mass density profiles and combined. We find that the mass density profiles show a weak upturn at the very outer region, where surface brightness is as faint as $\mu_g\approx 34$ mag arcsec$^{-1}$. An exponential disk + power-law halo model on the mass density profiles finds the total stellar halo mass of $M_{halo}=8.2_{-2.2}^{+3.5}\times 10^7M_\odot$. The total stellar halo mass does not exceed $M_{halo} = 3.2 \times 10^8$ $M_{\odot}$ when strongly truncated disk models are considered. Combining the halo mass with the total stellar mass of M101, we obtain the stellar halo mass fraction of $M_{halo}/M_{gal} = 0.20_{-0.08}^{+0.10}\%$ with an upper limit of 0.78\%. We compare the halo properties of M101 with those of six GHOSTS survey galaxies as well as the Milky Way and M31 and find that M101 has an anemic stellar halo., Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

The dwarf satellites of `giant' Milky Way (MW)-mass galaxies are our primary probes of low-mass dark matter halos. The number and velocities of the satellite galaxies of the MW and M31 initially puzzled galaxy formation theorists, but are now reproduced well by many models. Yet, are the MW's and M31's satellites representative? Were galaxy formation models `overfit'? These questions motivate deep searches for satellite galaxies outside the Local Group. We present a deep survey of the `classical' satellites ($M_{\star}$$\geqslant$4$\times$10$^5 M_{\odot}$) of the MW-mass galaxy M94 out to 150 kpc projected distance. We find $only\ two$ satellites, each with $M_{\star}{\sim}10^6 M_{\odot}$, compared with 6-12 such satellites in the four other MW-mass systems with comparable data (MW, M31, M81, M101). Using a `standard' prescription for occupying dark matter halos (taken from the fully hydrodynamical EAGLE simulation) with galaxies, we find that such a sparse satellite population occurs in $, Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, published + additional reference

Models of galaxy formation in a hierarchical universe predict substantial scatter in the halo-to-halo stellar properties, owing to stochasticity in galaxies' merger histories. Currently, only few detailed observations of stellar halos are available, mainly for the Milky Way and M31. We present the stellar halo color/metallicity and density profiles of red giant branch stars out to ~60 kpc along the minor axis of six massive nearby Milky Way-like galaxies beyond the Local Group from the Galaxy Halos, Outer disks, Substructure, Thick disks and Star clusters (GHOSTS) HST survey. This enlargement of the sample of galaxies with observations of stellar halo properties is needed to understand the range of possible halo properties, i.e. not only the mean properties but also the halo-to-halo scatter, what a ‘typical’ halo looks like, and how similar the Milky Way halo is to other halos beyond the Local Group.

Galaxies with Milky Way-like stellar masses have a wide range of bulge and black hole masses; in turn, these correlate with other properties such as star formation history. While many processes may drive bulge formation, major and minor mergers are expected to play a crucial role. Stellar halos offer a novel and robust measurement of galactic merger history; cosmologically-motivated models predict that mergers with larger satellites produce more massive, higher metallicity stellar halos, reproducing the recently-observed stellar halo metallicity-mass relation. We quantify the relationship between stellar halo mass and bulge or black hole prominence using a sample of eighteen Milky Way-mass galaxies with newly-available measurements of (or limits on) stellar halo properties. There is an order of magnitude range in bulge mass, and two orders of magnitude in black hole mass, at a given stellar halo mass (or, equivalently, merger history). Galaxies with low mass bulges show a wide range of quiet merger histories, implying formation mechanisms that do not require intense merging activity. Galaxies with massive 'classical' bulges and central black holes also show a wide range of merger histories. While three of these galaxies have massive stellar halos consistent with a merger origin, two do not - merging appears to have had little impact in making these two massive 'classical' bulges. Such galaxies may be ideal laboratories to study massive bulge formation through pathways such as early gas-rich accretion, violent disk instabilities or misaligned infall of gas throughout cosmic time., Astrophysical Journal Letters, in press. 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

Galaxy mergers are expected to influence galaxy properties, yet measurements of individual merger histories are lacking. Models predict that merger histories can be measured using stellar halos and that these halos can be quantified using observations of resolved stars along their minor axis. Such observations reveal that Milky Way-mass galaxies have a wide range of stellar halo properties and show a correlation between their stellar halo masses and metallicities. This correlation agrees with merger-driven models where stellar halos are formed by satellite galaxy disruption. In these models, the largest accreted satellite dominates the stellar halo properties. Consequently, the observed diversity in the stellar halos of Milky Way-mass galaxies implies a large range in the masses of their largest merger partners. In particular, the Milky Way’s low mass halo implies an unusually quiet merger history. We used these measurements to seek predicted correlations between the bulge and central black hole (BH) mass and the mass of the largest merger partner. We found no significant correlations: while some galaxies with large bulges and BHs have large stellar halos and thus experienced a major or minor merger, half have small stellar halos and never experienced a significant merger event. These results indicate that bulge and BH growth is not solely driven by merger-related processes.

We present new deep photometry of the rich globular cluster (GC) systems around the Brightest Cluster Galaxies UGC 9799 (Abell 2052) and UGC 10143 (Abell 2147), obtained with the HST ACS and WFC3 cameras. For comparison, we also present new reductions of similar HST/ACS data for the Coma supergiants NGC 4874 and 4889. All four of these galaxies have huge cluster populations (to the radial limits of our data, comprising from 12000 to 23000 clusters per galaxy). The metallicity distribution functions (MDFs) of the GCs can still be matched by a bimodal-Gaussian form where the metal-rich and metal-poor modes are separated by ~0.8 dex, but the internal dispersions of each mode are so large that the total MDF becomes very broad and nearly continuous from [Fe/H] = -2.4 to Solar. There are, however, significant differences between galaxies in the relative numbers of \emph{metal-rich} clusters, suggesting that they underwent significantly different histories of mergers with massive, gas-rich halos. Lastly, the proportion of metal-poor GCs rises especially rapidly outside projected radii R > 4 R_eff, suggesting the importance of accreted dwarf satellites in the outer halo. Comprehensive models for the formation of GCs as part of the hierarchical formation of their parent galaxies will be needed to trace the systematic change in structure of the MDF with galaxy mass, from the distinctly bimodal form in smaller galaxies up to the broad continuum that we see in the very largest systems., In press for Astrophysical Journal

The number, distribution, and properties of dwarf satellites are crucial probes of the physics of galaxy formation at low masses and the response of satellite galaxies to the tidal and gas dynamical effects of their more massive parent.To make progress, it is necessary to augment and solidify the census of dwarf satellites of galaxies outside the Local Group. M\"uller et al. (2015) presented 16 dwarf galaxy candidates near M83, but lacking reliable distances, it is unclear which candidates are M83 satellites. Using red giant branch stars from the HST/GHOSTS survey in conjunction with ground-based images from VLT/VIMOS, we confirm that one of the candidates, dw1335-29-- with a projected distance of 26 kpc from M83 and a distance modulus of $(m - M)_0 = 28.5^{+0.3}_{-0.1}$ -- is a satellite of M83. We estimate an absolute magnitude $M_V = -10.1 \pm{0.4}$, an ellipticity of $0.40^{+0.14}_{-0.22}$, a half light radius of $656^{+121}_{-170 }$ pc, and [Fe/H] = $-1.3^{+0.3}_{-0.4}$. Owing to dw1335-29's somewhat irregular shape and possible young stars, we classify this galaxy as a dwarf irregular or transition dwarf. This is curious, as with a projected distance of 26 kpc from M83, dw1335-29 is expected to lack recent star formation. Further study of M83's dwarf population will reveal if star formation in its satellites is commonplace (suggesting a lack of a hot gas envelope for M83 that would quench star formation) or rare (suggesting that dw1335-29 has a larger M83-centric distance, and is fortuitously projected to small radii)., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The spatial and velocity distributions of dark matter particles in the Milky Way Halo affect the signals expected to be observed in searches for dark matter. Results from direct detection experiments are often analyzed assuming a simple isothermal distribution of dark matter, the Standard Halo Model (SHM). Yet there has been skepticism regarding the validity of this simple model due to the complicated gravitational collapse and merger history of actual galaxies. In this paper we compare the SHM to the results of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation to investigate whether or not the SHM is a good representation of the true WIMP distribution in the analysis of direct detection data. We examine two Milky Way-like galaxies from the MaGICC cosmological simulations (a) with dark matter only and (b) with baryonic physics included. The inclusion of baryons drives the shape of the DM halo to become more spherical and makes the velocity distribution of dark matter particles less anisotropic especially at large heliocentric velocities, thereby making the SHM a better fit. We also note that we do not find a significant disk-like rotating dark matter component in either of the two galaxy halos with baryons that we examine, suggesting that dark disks are not a generic prediction of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We conclude that in the Solar neighborhood, the SHM is in fact a good approximation to the true dark matter distribution in these cosmological simulations (with baryons) which are reasonable representations of the Milky Way, and hence can also be used for the purpose of dark matter direct detection calculations., Minor changes to match JCAP version. 21 pages, 9 figures

We study the stellar halo color properties of six nearby massive highly inclined disk galaxies using Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 observations in both F606W and F814W filters from the GHOSTS survey. The observed fields, placed both along the minor and major axis of each galaxy, probe the stellar outskirts out to projected distances of ~ 50-70 kpc from their galactic centre along the minor axis. The 50% completeness levels of the color magnitude diagrams are typically at two mag below the tip of the red giant branch. We find that all galaxies have extended stellar halos out to ~ 50 kpc and two out to ~ 70 kpc. We determined the halo color distribution and color profile for each galaxy using the median colors of stars in the RGB. Within each galaxy we find variations in the median colors as a function of radius which likely indicates population variations, reflecting that their outskirts were built from several small accreted objects. We find that half of the galaxies (NGC 0891, NGC 4565, and NGC 7814) present a clear negative color gradient, reflecting a declining metallicity in their halos; the other have no significant color or population gradient. In addition, notwithstanding the modest sample size of galaxies, there is no strong correlation between their halo color/metallicity or gradient with galaxy's properties such as rotational velocity or stellar mass. The diversity in halo color profiles observed in the GHOSTS galaxies qualitatively supports the predicted galaxy-to-galaxy scatter in halo stellar properties; a consequence of the stochasticity inherent in the assembling history of galaxies., Comment: Accepted by MNRAS, 31 pages, 18 figures. Appendix added and some editions to match accepted version. Conclusions unchanged

We study the individual evolution histories of three nearby low-mass edge-on galaxies (IC 5052, NGC4244, and NGC5023). Using resolved stellar populations, we constructed star count density maps for populations of different ages and analyzed the change of structural parameters with stellar age within each galaxy. We do not detect a separate thick disk in any of the three galaxies, even though our observations cover a wider range in equivalent surface brightness than any integrated light study. While scale heights increase with age, each population can be well described by a single disk. Two of the galaxies contain a very weak additional component, which we identify as the faint halo. The mass of these faint halos is lower than 1% of the mass of the disk. The three galaxies show low vertical heating rates, which are much lower than the heating rate of the Milky Way. This indicates that heating agents, such as giant molecular clouds and spiral structure, are weak in low-mass galaxies. All populations in the three galaxies exhibit no or only little flaring. While this finding is consistent with previous integrated light studies, it poses strong constraints on galaxy simulations, where strong flaring is often found as a result of interactions or radial migration., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A

We examine the chemical properties of 5 cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of an M33-like disc galaxy which have been shown to be consistent with the morphological characteristics and bulk scaling relations expected of late-type spirals. These simulations are part of the Making Galaxies In a Cosmological Context (MaGICC) Project, in which stellar feedback is tuned to match the stellar mass -- halo mass relationship. Each realisation employed identical initial conditions and assembly histories, but differed from one another in their underlying baryonic physics prescriptions, including (a) the efficiency with which each supernova energy couples to the ISM, (b) the impact of feedback associated with massive star radiation pressure, (c) the role of the minimum shut-off time for radiative cooling of Type II SNe remnants, (d) the treatment of metal diffusion, and (e) varying the IMF. Our analysis focusses on the resulting stellar metallicity distribution functions (MDFs) in each simulated (analogous) `solar neighbourhood' and central `bulge' region. We compare the simulated MDFs' skewness, kurtosis, and dispersion (inter-quartile, inter-decile, inter-centile, and inter-tenth-percentile regions) with that of the empirical solar neighbourhood MDF and Local Group dwarfs. We find that the MDFs of the simulated discs are more negatively skewed, with higher kurtosis, than those observed locally. We can trace this difference to the simulations' tight and correlated age-metallicity relations (compared with that of the Milky Way), suggesting that these relations within `dwarf' discs might be steeper than in L* discs and/or the degree of stellar orbital re-distribution and migration inferred locally has not been captured in their entirety, at the resolution of our simulations. The important role of metal diffusion in ameliorating the over-production of extremely metal-poor stars is highlighted.

Encoded within the morphological structure of galaxies are clues related to their formation and evolutionary history. Recent advances pertaining to the statistics of galaxy morphology include sophisticated measures of concentration (C), asymmetry (A), and clumpiness (S). In this study, these three parameters (CAS) have been applied to a suite of simulated galaxies and compared with observational results inferred from a sample of nearby galaxies. The simulations span a range of late-type systems, with masses between ~1e10 Msun and ~1e12 Msun, and employ star formation density thresholds between 0.1 cm^-3 and 100 cm^-3. We have found that the simulated galaxies possess comparable concentrations to their real counterparts. However, the results of the CAS analysis revealed that the simulated galaxies are generally more asymmetric, and that the range of clumpiness values extends beyond the range of those observed. Strong correlations were obtained between the three CAS parameters and colour (B-V), consistent with observed galaxies. Furthermore, the simulated galaxies possess strong links between their CAS parameters and Hubble type, mostly in-line with their real counterparts.

We present a study of satellites in orbit around a high-resolution, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) galaxy simulated in a cosmological context. The simulated galaxy is approximately the same mass as the Milky Way. The cumulative number of luminous satellites at z = 0 is similar to the observed system of satellites orbiting the Milky Way although an analysis of the satellite mass function reveals an order of magnitude more dark satellites than luminous. Some of the dark subhalos are more massive than some of the luminous subhalos at z = 0. What separates luminous and dark subhalos is not their mass at z = 0, but the maximum mass the subhalos ever achieve. We study the effect of four mass loss mechanisms on the subhalos: ultraviolet (UV) ionising radiation, ram pressure stripping, tidal stripping, and stellar feedback, and compare the impact of each of these four mechanisms on the satellites. In the lowest mass subhalos, UV is responsible for the majority of the baryonic mass loss. Ram pressure stripping removes whatever mass remains from the low mass satellites. More massive subhalos have deeper potential wells and retain more mass during reionisation. However, as satellites pass near the centre of the main halo, tidal forces cause significant mass loss from satellites of all masses. Satellites that are tidally stripped from the outside can account for the luminous satellites that are lower mass than some of the dark satellites. Stellar feedback has the greatest impact on medium mass satellites that had formed stars, but lost all their gas by z = 0. Our results demonstrate that the missing satellite problem is not an intractable issue with the cold dark matter cosmology, but is rather a manifestation of baryonic processes.

Detailed observations of globular clusters (GCs) have revealed evidence of self-enrichment: some of the heavy elements that we see in stars today were produced by cluster stars themselves. Moreover, GCs have internal subpopulations with different elemental abundances, including, in some cases, in elements such as iron that are produced by supernovae. This paper presents a theoretical model for GC formation motivated by observations of Milky Way star forming regions and simulations of star formation, where giant molecular clouds fragment into multiple clumps which undergo star formation at slightly different times. Core collapse supernovae from earlier-forming clumps can enrich later-forming clumps to the degree that the ejecta can be retained within the gravitational potential well, resulting in subpopulations with different total metallicities once the clumps merge to form the final cluster. The model matches the mass-metallicity relation seen in GC populations around massive elliptical galaxies, and predicts metallicity spreads within clusters in excellent agreement with those seen in Milky Way GCs, even for those whose internal abundance spreads are so large that their entire identity as a GC is in question. The internal metallicity spread serves as an excellent measurement of how much self-enrichment has occurred in a cluster, a result that is very robust to variation in the model parameters., Comment: ApJ, in press. 18 pages. Code instantiating the model is at doi:10.5281/zenodo.1253347

We present the McMaster Unbiased Galaxy Simulations (MUGS), the first 9 galaxies of an unbiased selection ranging in total mass from 5$\times10^{11}$ M$_\odot$ to 2$\times10^{12}$ M$_\odot$ simulated using n-body smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) at high resolution. The simulations include a treatment of low temperature metal cooling, UV background radiation, star formation, and physically motivated stellar feedback. Mock images of the simulations show that the simulations lie within the observed range of relations such as that between color and magnitude and that between brightness and circular velocity (Tully-Fisher). The greatest discrepancy between the simulated galaxies and observed galaxies is the high concentration of material at the center of the galaxies as represented by the centrally peaked rotation curves and the high bulge-to-total ratios of the simulations determined both kinematically and photometrically. This central concentration represents the excess of low angular momentum material that long has plagued morphological studies of simulated galaxies and suggests that higher resolutions and a more accurate description of feedback will be required to simulate more realistic galaxies. Even with the excess central mass concentrations, the simulations suggest the important role merger history and halo spin play in the formation of disks.

We develop a model for stochastic pre-enrichment and self-enrichment in globular clusters (GCs) during their formation process. GCs beginning their formation have an initial metallicity determined by the pre-enrichment of their surrounding protocloud, but can also undergo internal self-enrichment during formation. Stochastic variations in metallicity arise because of the finite numbers of supernova. We construct an analytic formulation of the combined effects of pre-enrichment and self-enrichment and use Monte Carlo models to verify that the model accurately encapsulates the mean metallicity and metallicity spread among real GCs. The predicted metallicity spread due to self-enrichment alone, a robust prediction of the model, is much smaller than the observed spread among real GCs. This result rules out self-enrichment as a significant contributor to the metal content in most GCs, leaving pre-enrichment as the viable alternative. Self-enrichment can, however, be important for clusters with masses well above 10^6 Msun, which are massive enough to hold in a significant fraction of their SN ejecta even without any external pressure confinement. This transition point corresponds well to the mass at which a mass-metallicity relationship ("blue tilt") appears in the metal-poor cluster sequence in many large galaxies. We therefore suggest that self-enrichment is the primary driver for the mass-metallicity relation. Other predictions from our model are that the cluster-to-cluster metallicity spread decreases amongst the highest mass clusters; and that the red GC sequence should also display a more modest mass-metallicity trend if it can be traced to similarly high mass., Comment: 12 pages, accepted for publication in ApJ

The Parkes Galactic All-Sky Survey (GASS) is a survey of Galactic atomic hydrogen (HI) emission in the Southern sky covering declinations $\delta \leq 1^{\circ}$ using the Parkes Radio Telescope. The survey covers $2\pi$ steradians with an effective angular resolution of ~16', at a velocity resolution of 1.0 km/s, and with an rms brightness temperature noise of 57 mK. GASS is the most sensitive, highest angular resolution survey of Galactic HI emission ever made in the Southern sky. In this paper we outline the survey goals, describe the observations and data analysis, and present the first-stage data release. The data product is a single cube at full resolution, not corrected for stray radiation. Spectra from the survey and other data products are publicly available online., Comment: 35 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS. Full resolution version available at ftp://ftp.atnf.csiro.au/pub/people/nmcclure/papers/GASS.1.ps.gz

We present the second data release of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE), an ambitious spectroscopic survey to measure radial velocities (RVs) and stellar atmosphere parameters of up to one million stars using the 6dF multi-object spectrograph on the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope of the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO). It is obtaining medium resolution spectra (median R=7,500) in the Ca-triplet region (8,410--8,795 \AA) for southern hemisphere stars in the magnitude range 9, Comment: 85 pages, 23 figures, 14 tables, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal

We present a new method to classify galaxies from large surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using inclination-corrected concentration, inclination-corrected location on the color-magnitude diagram, and apparent axis ratio. Explicitly accounting for inclination tightens the distribution of each of these parameters and enables simple boundaries to be drawn that delineate three different galaxy populations: Early-type galaxies, which are red, highly concentrated, and round; Late-type galaxies, which are blue, have low concentrations, and are disk dominated; and Intermediate-type galaxies, which are red, have intermediate concentrations, and have disks. We have validated our method by comparing to visual classifications of high-quality imaging data from the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue. The inclination correction is crucial to unveiling the previously unrecognized Intermediate class. Intermediate-type galaxies, roughly corresponding to lenticulars and early spirals, lie on the red sequence. The red sequence is therefore composed of two distinct morphological types, suggesting that there are two distinct mechanisms for transiting to the red sequence. We propose that Intermediate-type galaxies are those that have lost their cold gas via strangulation, while Early-type galaxies are those that have experienced a major merger that either consumed their cold gas, or whose merger progenitors were already devoid of cold gas (the ``dry merger'' scenario)., Accepted for publication in ApJ. 7 pages in emulateapj