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# Simultaneous Constraints on the Star Formation History and Nucleosynthesis of Sculptor dSph

de los Reyes, Mithi A. C. and Kirby, Evan N. and Ji, Alexander P. and Nuñez, Evan H. (2022) Simultaneous Constraints on the Star Formation History and Nucleosynthesis of Sculptor dSph. Astrophysical Journal, 925 (1). Art. No. 66. ISSN 0004-637X. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac332b. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20211130-215710052

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## Abstract

We demonstrate that using up to seven stellar abundance ratios can place observational constraints on the star formation histories (SFHs) of Local Group dSphs, using Sculptor dSph as a test case. We use a one-zone chemical evolution model to fit the overall abundance patterns of α elements (which probe the core-collapse supernovae that occur shortly after star formation), s-process elements (which probe AGB nucleosynthesis at intermediate delay times), and iron-peak elements (which probe delayed Type Ia supernovae). Our best-fit model indicates that Sculptor dSph has an ancient SFH, consistent with previous estimates from deep photometry. However, we derive a total star formation duration of ∼0.9 Gyr, which is shorter than photometrically derived SFHs. We explore the effect of various model assumptions on our measurement and find that modifications to these assumptions still produce relatively short SFHs of duration ≲1.4 Gyr. Our model is also able to compare sets of predicted nucleosynthetic yields for supernovae and AGB stars, and can provide insight into the nucleosynthesis of individual elements in Sculptor dSph. We find that observed [Mn/Fe] and [Ni/Fe] trends are most consistent with sub-MCh Type Ia supernova models, and that a combination of "prompt" (delay times similar to core-collapse supernovae) and "delayed" (minimum delay times ≳50 Myr) r-process events may be required to reproduce observed [Ba/Mg] and [Eu/Mg] trends.

Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac332bDOIArticle
https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.01690arXivDiscussion Paper
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
de los Reyes, Mithi A. C.0000-0002-4739-046X
Kirby, Evan N.0000-0001-6196-5162
Ji, Alexander P.0000-0002-4863-8842
Nuñez, Evan H.0000-0001-5595-757X
Additional Information:© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Received 2021 August 2; revised 2021 September 23; accepted 2021 October 24; published 2022 January 26. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. AST-1847909. M.A.d.l.R. and E.H.N. acknowledge the financial support of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. E.N.K. gratefully acknowledges support from a Cottrell Scholar award administered by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. A.P.J. acknowledges support from a Carnegie Fellowship and the Thacher Research Award in Astronomy. There are many communities without whom this work would not have been possible. We thank the anonymous reviewer for comments that helped improve the paper. We acknowledge that this work is rooted in Western scientific practices and is the material product of a long and complex history of settler-colonialism. M.A.d.l.R., E.N.K., E.H.N., and A.P.J. wish to recognize their status as settlers on the traditional and unceded territory of the Tongva peoples, and to recognize that the astronomical observations described in this paper were only possible because of the dispossession of Maunakea from ${\rm{K}}\bar{{\rm{a}}}$naka Maoli. We hope to work toward a scientific practice guided by pono and a future in which we all honor the land. Finally, we would like to express our deep gratitude to the staff at academic and telescope facilities, particularly those whose communities are excluded from the academic system but whose labor maintains spaces for scientific inquiry. Facility: Keck:II (DEIMOS). - Software: Matplotlib (Hunter 2007), Astropy (Robitaille et al. 2013), Scipy (Jones et al. 2001), emcee (Foreman-Mackey et al. 2013).
Group:Astronomy Department
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
NSFAST-1847909
Cottrell Scholar of Research CorporationUNSPECIFIED
Carnegie Institution of WashingtonUNSPECIFIED
Carnegie ObservatoriesUNSPECIFIED
Subject Keywords:Dwarf galaxies; Dwarf spheroidal galaxies; Sculptor dwarf elliptical galaxy; Star formation; Nucleosynthesis; Stellar nucleosynthesis; Galaxies; Galaxy spectroscopy
Issue or Number:1
Classification Code:Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Dwarf galaxies (416); Dwarf spheroidal galaxies (420); Sculptor dwarf elliptical galaxy (1436); Star formation (1569); Nucleosynthesis (1131); Stellar nucleosynthesis (1616); Galaxies (573); Galaxy spectroscopy (2171)
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ac332b
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20211130-215710052
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20211130-215710052
Official Citation:Mithi A. C. de los Reyes et al 2022 ApJ 925 66
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:112103
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: George Porter
Deposited On:02 Dec 2021 20:54