The extensive age gradient of the Carina dwarf galaxy

TL;DR

This study uses deep wide-area photometry to reveal Carina dwarf galaxy's extended structure, tidal disruption signs, and a negative age gradient, providing insights into its evolution and interaction with the Milky Way.

Contribution

First detailed mapping of Carina's structure and age distribution at large radii, showing signs of tidal disruption and an age gradient not previously observed.

Findings

Carina extends beyond its nominal tidal radius.

Signs of tidal disruption such as isophote twists and tails.

Presence of a negative age gradient traced to large distances.

Abstract

The evolution of small systems such as dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSph) is likely to have been a balance between external environmental effects and internal processes within their own relatively shallow potential wells. Assessing how strong such environmental interactions may have been is therefore an important element in understanding the baryonic evolution of dSphs and their derived dark matter distribution. Here we present results from a wide-area CTIO/MOSAIC II photometric survey of the Carina dSph, reaching down to about two magnitudes below the oldest main sequence turn-off (MSTO). This data-set enables us to trace the structure of Carina in detail out to very large distances from its center, and as a function of stellar age. We observe the presence of an extended structure made up primarily of ancient MSTO stars, at distances between 25arcmin-60arcmin from Carina's center, confirming results in the literature that Carina extends well beyond its nominal tidal radius. The large number statistics of our survey reveals features such as isophote twists and tails that had gone undetected in other previous shallower surveys. This is the first time that such unambiguous signs of tidal disruption have been found in a Milky Way "classical" dwarf other than Sagittarius. We also demonstrate the presence of a negative age gradient in Carina directly from its MSTOs, and trace it out to very large distances from the galaxy center. The signs of interaction with the Milky Way make it unclear whether the age gradient was already in place before Carina underwent tidal disruption.