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  4. The Pristine survey - X. A large population of low-metallicity stars permeates the Galactic disc
 
research article

The Pristine survey - X. A large population of low-metallicity stars permeates the Galactic disc

Sestito, Federico
•
Martin, Nicolas F.
•
Starkenburg, Else
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September 1, 2020
Monthly Notices Of The Royal Astronomical Society

The orbits of the least chemically enriched stars open a window on the formation of our Galaxy when it was still in its infancy. The common picture is that these low-metallicity stars are distributed as an isotropic, pressure-supported component since these stars were either accreted from the early building blocks of the assembling Milky Way (MW), or were later brought by the accretion of faint dwarf galaxies. Combining the metallicities and radial velocities from the Pristine and LAMOST surveys and Gaia DR2 parallaxes and proper motions for an unprecedented large and unbiased sample of 1027 very metal poor stars at [Fe/H] <= -2.5 dex, we show that this picture is incomplete. We find that 31 per cent of the stars that currently reside spatially in the disc (vertical bar Z vertical bar <= 3 kpc) do not venture outside of the disc plane throughout their orbit. Moreover, this sample shows strong statistical evidence (at the 5.0 sigma level) of asymmetry in their kinematics, favouring prograde motion. The discovery of this population implies that a significant fraction of stars with iron abundances [Fe/H] <= -2.5 dex merged into, formed within, or formed concurrently with the MW disc and that the history of the disc was quiet enough to allow them to retain their disc-like orbital properties, challenging theoretical and cosmological models.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1093/mnrasl/slaa022
Web of Science ID

WOS:000574920100002

Author(s)
Sestito, Federico
Martin, Nicolas F.
Starkenburg, Else
Arentsen, Anke
Ibata, Rodrigo A.
Longeard, Nicolas  
Kielty, Collin
Youakim, Kristopher
Venn, Kim A.
Aguado, David S.
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Date Issued

2020-09-01

Publisher

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

Published in
Monthly Notices Of The Royal Astronomical Society
Volume

497

Issue

1

Start page

L7

End page

L12

Subjects

Astronomy & Astrophysics

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galaxy: abundances

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galaxy: disc

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galaxy: evolution

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galaxy: formation

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galaxy: halo

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galaxy: kinematics and dynamics

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milky-way

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chemical evolution

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1st stars

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galaxy

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thick

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espadons

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signatures

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history

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oldest

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halos

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LASTRO  
Available on Infoscience
June 19, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/179390
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