The morphology and structure of stellar populations in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy from Dark Energy Survey Data

TL;DR

This study uses deep DES Y3 data to analyze the structure, stellar populations, and possible merger signatures of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy, revealing complex substructures and a more extended shape than previously thought.

Contribution

First detailed wide-field analysis of Fornax using DES Y3 data, uncovering new substructures and insights into its formation history.

Findings

Fornax is more spatially extended than earlier believed.

No significant tidal disturbances detected.

Identified shell-like features possibly from past mergers.

Abstract

Using deep wide-field photometry three-year data (Y3) from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), we present a panoramic study of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy. The data presented here -- a small subset of the full survey -- uniformly covers a region of 25 square degrees centered on the galaxy to a depth of g ~ 23.5. We use this data to study the structural properties of Fornax, overall stellar population, and its member stars in different evolutionary phases. We also search for possible signs of tidal disturbance. Fornax is found to be significantly more spatially extended than what early studies suggested. No statistically significant distortions or signs of tidal disturbances were found down to a surface brightness limit of ~32.1 mag/arcsec^2. However, there are hints of shell-like features located ~30' - 40' from the center of Fornax that may be stellar debris from past merger events. We also find that intermediate age and young main-sequence populations show different orientation at the galaxy center and have many substructures. The deep DES Y3 data allows us to characterize the age of those substructures with great accuracy, both those previously known and those newly discovered in this work, on the basis of their color-magnitude diagram morphology. We find that the youngest overdensities are all found on the Eastern side of Fornax, where the Fornax field population itself is slightly younger than in the West. The high quality DES Y3 data reveals that Fornax has many rich structures, and provides insights into its complex formation history.