The Star Formation & Chemical Evolution History of the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
T. J. L. de Boer, E. Tolstoy, V. Hill, A. Saha, E. W. Olszewski, M., Mateo, E. Starkenburg, G. Battaglia, M. G. Walker

TL;DR
This study reconstructs the detailed star formation and chemical evolution history of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy using deep photometry and spectroscopic data, revealing age and metallicity gradients and element enrichment timescales.
Contribution
It provides the first comprehensive star formation and chemical evolution history of Fornax, combining photometry and spectroscopy to analyze age-metallicity relations and element build-up.
Findings
Fornax has a dominant intermediate-age stellar population.
A radial age gradient with younger, metal-rich stars in the center.
Rapid metallicity increase from [Fe/H]<-2.5 to -1.5 dex 8-12 Gyr ago.
Abstract
We present deep photometry in the B,V and I filters from CTIO/MOSAIC for about 270.000 stars in the Fornax dwarf Spheroidal galaxy, out to a radius of r_ell\sim0.8 degrees. By combining the accurately calibrated photometry with the spectroscopic metallicity distributions of individual Red Giant Branch stars we obtain the detailed star formation and chemical evolution history of Fornax. Fornax is dominated by intermediate age (1-10 Gyr) stellar populations, but also includes ancient (10-14 Gyr), and young (<1 Gyr) stars. We show that Fornax displays a radial age gradient, with younger, more metal-rich populations dominating the central region. This confirms results from previous works. Within an elliptical radius of 0.8 degrees, or 1.9 kpc from the centre, a total mass in stars of 4.3x10^7 Msun was formed, from the earliest times until 250 Myr ago. Using the detailed star formation…
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