Time stamps of vertical phase mixing in the Galactic disk from LAMOST-Gaia stars

TL;DR

This study uses LAMOST-Gaia data to analyze vertical phase mixing in the Galactic disk, revealing that perturbations likely started no later than 0.5 Gyr ago, providing insights into disk evolution and perturbation mechanisms.

Contribution

It constrains the timing of vertical perturbations in the Galactic disk using phase space spiral structures across stellar ages.

Findings

Spiral structures are present in all stellar age bins except the oldest (>6 Gyr).

Vertical perturbations likely began no later than 0.5 Gyr ago.

Young stars may inherit oscillations from the interstellar medium.

Abstract

The perturbation mechanism of the Galactic disk has puzzled us for a long time. The imprints from perturbations provide important diagnostics on the disk formation and evolution. Here we try to constrain when the vertical perturbation took place in the disk by tracking the phase mixing history. Firstly, we clearly depict the spiral structures of radial ($v_R$) and azimuthal ($v_{\phi}$) velocities in the phase space of the vertical position and velocity ($z$-$v_z$) with 723,871 LAMOST-Gaia combined stars. Then, we investigate the variation of the spirals with stellar age ($\tau$) by dividing the sample into seven stellar age bins. Finally, we find that the spirals explicitly exist in all the bins, even in the bin of $\tau<0.5$\,Gyr, except for the bin of $\tau>6.0$\,Gyr. This constrains the vertical perturbation probably starting no later than 0.5\,Gyr ago. But we can not rule out whether the young stars ($\tau<0.5$\,Gyr) inherit the oscillations from the perturbed ISM where they born from. This study provides some important observational evidences to understand the disk perturbation mechanisms, even the formation and evolution of our Galaxy.