On the HI-Hole and AGB Stellar Population of the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy

TL;DR

This study uses proper-motion data from HST/ACS to clarify SagDIG's stellar populations, identify rare stars, and investigate the origin of its HI-hole, concluding stellar feedback is unlikely responsible for the hole.

Contribution

It provides the first proper-motion decontaminated catalog of SagDIG's stellar populations and analyzes the HI-hole's origin, challenging the stellar feedback hypothesis.

Findings

Proper-motion decontamination clarifies stellar populations.

Identification of Milky Way carbon-rich dwarf stars.

No evidence linking stellar feedback to the HI-hole.

Abstract

Using two HST/ACS data-sets that are separated by ~2 years has allowed us to derive the relative proper-motion for the Sagittarius dwarf irregular (SagDIG) and reduce the heavy foreground Galactic contamination. The proper-motion decontaminated SagDIG catalog provides a much clearer view of the young red-supergiant and intermediate-age asymptotic giant branch populations. We report the identification of 3 Milky Way carbon-rich dwarf stars, probably belonging to the thin disk, and pointing to the high incidence of this class at low Galactic latitudes. A sub-group of 4 oxygen-rich candidate stars depicts a faint, red extension of the well-defined SagDIG carbon-rich sequence. The origin of these oxygen-rich candidate stars remains unclear, reflecting the uncertainty in the ratio of carbon/oxygen rich stars. SagDIG is also a gas-rich galaxy characterized by a single large cavity in the gas disk (HI-hole), which is offset by ~360 pc from the optical centre of the galaxy. We nonetheless investigate the stellar feedback hypothesis by comparing the proper-motion cleaned stellar populations within the HI-hole with appropriately selected comparison regions, having higher HI densities external to the hole. The comparison shows no significant differences. In particular, the centre of the HI-hole (and the comparison regions) lack stellar populations younger than ~400 Myr, which are otherwise abundant in the inner body of the galaxy. We conclude that there is no convincing evidence that the SagDIG HI-hole is the result of stellar feedback, and that gravitational and thermal instabilities in the gas are the most likely mechanism for its formation.