Related papers: The Andromeda Stream
Recent observations have revealed streams of gas and stars in the halo of the Milky Way that are the debris from interactions between our Galaxy and some of its dwarf companion galaxies; the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy and the Magellanic…
Detailed studies of stellar populations in the halos of the Milky Way and the Andromeda (M 31) galaxies have shown increasing numbers of tidal streams and dwarf galaxies, attesting to a complicated and on-going process of hierarchical…
Tidal streams from existing and destroyed satellite galaxies populate the outer regions of the Andromeda galaxy (M31). This inhomogeneous debris can be studied without many of the obstacles that plague Milky Way research. We review the…
We present evidence for a new Milky Way stellar tidal stream in the direction of the Andromeda and Triangulum (M31 and M33) galaxies. Using a matched-filter technique, we search the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 8 by creating…
Driven by gravity, massive structures like galaxies and clusters of galaxies are believed to grow continuously through hierarchical merging and accretion of smaller systems. Observational evidence of accretion events is provided by the…
Standard cosmology predicts that dwarfs were the first galaxies to be formed in the Universe and that many of them merge afterwards to form bigger galaxies such as the Milky Way. This process would have left behind traces such as tidal…
In hierarchical cosmological models, galaxies grow in mass through the continual accretion of smaller ones. The tidal disruption of these systems is expected to result in loosely bound stars surrounding the galaxy, at distances that reach…
Standard cosmology predicts that dwarfs were the first galaxies to be formed in the Universe and that many of them merge afterwards to form bigger galaxies such as the Milky Way. This process would have left behind traces such as tidal…
The halo region of M31 exhibits a startling level of stellar inhomogeneities, the most prominent of which is the "giant southern stream". Our previous analysis indicates that this stream, as well as several other observed features, are…
As part of the Z-PAndAS Keck II DEIMOS survey of resolved stars in our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda (M31), we have built up a unique data set of measured velocities and chemistries for thousands of stars in the Andromeda stellar halo,…
We present a spectroscopic survey of the giant stellar stream found in the halo of the Andromeda galaxy. Taken with the DEIMOS multi-object spectrograph on the Keck2 telescope, these data display a narrow velocity dispersion of 11+/-3 km/s,…
Numerical simulations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies undergoing several close encounters with the Milky Way are described. By comparing our models to observed properties of the recently discovered dwarf galaxy in Sagittarius (Sgr), we discuss…
The relics of disrupted satellite galaxies around the Milky Way and Andromeda have been found, but direct evidence of a satellite galaxy in the early stages of being disrupted has remained elusive. We have discovered a dwarf satellite…
Hundreds of globular clusters and dwarf galaxies encircle the Milky Way. Many of these systems have undergone partial disruption due to tidal forces, littering the halo with stellar streams. These tidal tails are sensitive to the Galactic…
Dwarf galaxies that come too close to larger galaxies suffer tidal disruption; the differential gravitational force between one side of the galaxy and the other serves to rip the stars from the dwarf galaxy so that they instead orbit the…
We present a color-magnitude diagram (CMD) for a field in the giant tidal stream of the Andromeda galaxy (M31). These observations, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, are 50% complete at V~30 mag,…
The main aim of this paper is to report two new detections of tidal debris in the northern stream of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy located at 45 arcdeg and 55 arcdeg from the center of galaxy. Our observational approach is based on deep…
The wide-field CCD camera at the CFH telescope was used to survey the giant stellar stream in the Andromeda galaxy, resolving stars down the red giant branch in M31 to I ~ 25, a magnitude deeper than our previous INT survey of this galaxy…
We report on a 60 degree-long stream of stars, extending from Ursa Major to Sextans, in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The stream is approximately 2 degrees wide and is clearly distinct from the northern tidal arm of the Sagittarius dwarf…
Within the hierarchical framework for galaxy formation, merging and tidal interactions are expected to shape large galaxies to this day. While major mergers are quite rare at present, minor mergers and satellite disruptions - which result…