Two Stellar Components in the Halo of the Milky Way

The halo of the Milky Way provides unique elemental abundance and kinematic information on the first objects to form in the Universe, which can be used to tightly constrain models of galaxy formation and evolution. Although the halo was once considered a single component, evidence for its dichotomy has slowly emerged in recent years from inspection of small samples of halo objects. Here we show that the halo is indeed clearly divisible into two broadly overlapping structural components -- an inner and an outer halo -- that exhibit different spatial density profiles, stellar orbits and stellar metallicities (abundances of elements heavier than helium). The inner halo has a modest net prograde rotation, whereas the outer halo exhibits a net retrograde rotation and a peak metallicity one-third that of the inner halo. These properties indicate that the individual halo components probably formed in fundamentally different ways, through successive dissipational (inner) and dissipationless (outer) mergers and tidal disruption of proto-Galactic clumps.Comment: Two stand-alone files in manuscript, concatenated together. The first is for the main paper, the second for supplementary information. The version is consistent with the version published in Natur

Analysis of Star Formation in Galaxy-like Objects

Using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, we investigate the effects of hierarchical aggregation on the triggering of star formation in galactic-like objects. We include a simple star formation model to transform the cold gas in dense regions into stars. Simulations with different parameters have been performed in order to quantify the dependence of the results on the parameters. We then resort to stellar population synthesis models to trace the color evolution of each object with red-shift and in relation to their merger histories. We find that, in a hierarchical clustering scenario, the process of assembling of the structure is one natural mechanism that may trigger star formation. The resulting star formation rate history for each individual galactic object is composed of a continuous one ($\leq 3 \rm{M_{\odot}/yr}$) and a series of star bursts. We find that even the accretion of a small satellite can be correlated with a stellar burst. Massive mergers are found to be more efficient at transforming gas into starsComment: 11 postscript figures. 2000, ApJ, accepte