Insights on the Milky Way bulge formation from the correlations between kinematics and metallicity

TL;DR

This study investigates the relationship between kinematics and metallicity in the Milky Way bulge to understand its formation, revealing the coexistence of two formation scenarios through analysis of observational data and simulations.

Contribution

It provides new observational evidence linking metallicity and kinematic populations, supporting the coexistence of different bulge formation processes.

Findings

Confirmation of two distinct populations with different kinematics and metallicities.

Metallicity gradient explained by varying mixture of populations.

Evidence supporting the coexistence of multiple bulge formation scenarios.

Abstract

Two main scenarios for the formation of the Galactic bulge are invoked, the first one through gravitational collapse or hierarchical merging of subclumps, the second through secular evolution of the Galactic disc. We aim to constrain the formation of the Galactic bulge through studies of the correlation between kinematics and metallicities in Baade's Window (l=1, b=-4) and two other fields along the bulge minor axis (l=0, b=-6 and b=-12). We combine the radial velocity and the [Fe/H] measurements obtained with FLAMES/GIRAFFE at the VLT with a spectral resolution of R=20000, plus for the Baade's Window field the OGLE-II proper motions, and compare these with published N-body simulations of the Galactic bulge. We confirm the presence of two distinct populations in Baade's Window found in Hill et al. 2010: the metal-rich population presents bar-like kinematics while the metal-poor population shows kinematics corresponding to an old spheroid or a thick disc one. In this context the metallicity gradient along the bulge minor axis observed by Zoccali et al. (2008), visible also in the kinematics, can be related to a varying mix of these two populations as one moves away from the Galactic plane, alleviating the apparent contradiction between the kinematic evidence of a bar and the existence of a metallicity gradient. We show evidences that the two main scenarios for the bulge formation co-exist within the Milky Way bulge.