Related papers: The Andromeda Stream
As one of the most massive Milky Way satellites, the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy has played an important role in shaping the Galactic disk and stellar halo morphologies. The disruption of Sagittarius over several close-in passages has…
Two studies have recently reported the discovery of pronounced Halo substructure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) commissioning data. Here we show that this Halo substructure is almost in its entirety due to the expected tidal stream…
The Andromeda galaxy (M31) shows many tidal features in its halo, including the Giant Southern Stream (GSS) and a sharp ledge in surface density on its western side (the W Shelf). Using DEIMOS on the Keck telescope, we obtain radial…
It is now generally believed that galaxies were built up through gravitational amplification of primordial fluctuations and the subsequent merging of smaller precursor structures. The stars of the structures that assembled to form the Milky…
The dwarf galaxies orbiting a main galaxy suffer strong tidal forces produced by its dark halo. As a consequence, substructures and tidal tails could appear in the satellites. These structures could give us information about the dark matter…
The hierarchical model of galaxy formation predicts that the Milky Way halo is populated by tidal debris of dwarf galaxies and globular clusters. Due to long dynamical times, debris from the lowest mass objects remains coherent as thin and…
Understanding galaxy formation involves look-back and fossil-record studies of distant and nearby galaxies, respectively. Debris trails in our Galaxy's spheroidal halo of old stars provide evidence of "bottom-up" formation via tidal…
We present preliminary results of a long-term project to investigate the process of accretion and tidal disruption of dSph satellites in the Galactic halo and, in particular, to search for new tidal tails in a sample of nearby dSph…
The unusual morphologies of the Andromeda spiral galaxy (M31) and its dwarf companion M32 have been characterized observationally in great detail. The two galaxies' apparent proximity suggests that Andromeda's prominent star-forming ring as…
The possibility of a gaseous halo stream which was stripped from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy is presented. The total mass of the neutral hydrogen along the orbit of the Sgr dwarf in the direction of the Galactic anticenter is 4-10 x 10^6…
We reveal the highly structured nature of the Milky Way stellar halo within the footprint of the PAndAS photometric survey from blue main sequence and main sequence turn-off stars. We map no fewer than five stellar structures within a…
We undertake the first high resolution spectroscopic study of the Triangulum-Andromeda (TriAnd) star cloud --- an extended, mid-latitude Milky Way halo substructure about 20 kpc away in the second Galactic quadrant --- through six M giant…
Photometry in B, V (down to V ~ 26 mag) is presented for two 23' x 23' fields of the Andromeda galaxy (M31) that were observed with the blue channel camera of the Large Binocular Telescope during the Science Demonstration Time. Each field…
To place the highly substructured stellar halos of the Milky Way and M31 in a larger context of hierarchical galaxy formation, it is necessary to understand the prevalence and properties of tidal substructure around external galaxies. This…
We describe first results of a spectroscopic probe of selected fields from the Grid Giant Star Survey. Multifiber spectroscopy of several hundred stars in a strip of eleven fields along delta approximately -17^{circ}, in the range 12 <~…
Stellar streams produced from dwarf galaxies provide direct evidence of the hierarchical formation of the Milky Way. Here, we present the first comprehensive study of the "LMS-1" stellar stream, that we detect by searching for wide streams…
In the hierarchical formation scenario in which the outer halo of the Milky Way is the result of the continuous accretion of low-mass galaxies, a fraction of the Galactic globular cluster system might have originated in and been accreted…
The Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal (Sgr) is a dissolving galaxy being tidally disrupted by the Milky Way (MW). Its stellar stream still poses serious modelling challenges, which hinders our ability to use it effectively as a probe of the MW…
The last 10-20 years has seen a profound shift in views of how the Galaxy's halo formed. The idea of a monolithic early collapse of a single system (Eggen, Lynden-Bell and Sandage 1962) has been challenged by observations at high redshift…
We present results of our dynamical stream modelling for the North West Stream in the outer halo of the Andromeda galaxy (M31). Comprising two main segments, the North West Stream was thought to be a single structured arching around M31.…