The Milky Way's history through Galactic archaeology
Dr. Andreia Carrillo
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Department of Physics
University of Durham
The Milky Way provides an unparalleled view into galaxy formation, aided by the chemistry, kinematics, and ages of its individual stars. In this talk, I will discuss how we have advanced our understanding of our Galaxy's assembly as told by stars in its different components: the stellar halo which is predominantly built through mergers and the disk which is mostly made up of in-situ stars. First, I will present the chemical abundances in the alpha, light, odd-Z, iron-peak, and neutron-capture groups of elements of accreted halo stars from the Milky Way's last significant merger, Gaia-Sausage/Enceladus (GSE), to contrast with in-situ stellar populations and the large Milky Way satellite, LMC. Still on the stellar halo, I will discuss the many ways we select these accreted stars and their effects on the inferred progenitor properties. Additionally, we test these selections on simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies in the Auriga simulations with GSE mergers 6-10 Gyr ago. Lastly, I will switch gears and focus on the Milky Way in-situ stars and explore the age-abundance relations of individual stars in the FIRE simulations. Observations of Milky Way disk stars have found that one only needs a star's age and metallicity to predict its detailed abundance up to 0.02 dex. The aim is to investigate if current state-of-the-art simulations are able to capture the detailed chemistry in the disk of Milky Way-like galaxies, and what physical conditions give rise to the age-abundance relation slopes and scatters.
Hosted by Prof. Kirby