Radial structure and formation of the Milky Way disc

TL;DR

This study analyzes the radial evolution of the Milky Way's disc using APOGEE data, revealing insights into its formation, chemical mixing, and inside-out growth pattern from the Galactic center to outer regions.

Contribution

It provides detailed observational evidence on the radial chemical and age distribution of the Galactic disc, constraining models of its formation and evolution.

Findings

Thick disc formed from a well-mixed medium.

Outer thin disc shows metallicity dilution with increasing radius.

Evidence of inside-out formation up to 10-12 kpc.

Abstract

The formation of the Galactic disc is an enthusiastically debated issue. Numerous studies and models seek to identify the dominant physical process(es) that shaped its observed properties. Taking advantage of the improved coverage of the inner Milky Way provided by the SDSS DR16 APOGEE catalogue and of the ages published in the APOGEE-AstroNN Value Added Catalogue (VAC), we examine the radial evolution of the chemical and age properties of the Galactic stellar disc, with the aim to better constrain its formation. Using a sample of 199,307 giant stars with precise APOGEE abundances and APOGEE-astroNN ages, selected in a +/-2 kpc layer around the galactic plane, we assess the dependency with guiding radius of: (i) the median metallicity, (ii) the ridge lines of the [Fe/H]-[Mg/Fe] and age-[Mg/Fe] distributions and (iii) the Age Distribution Function (ADF). The giant star sample allows us to probe the radial behaviour of the Galactic disc from Rg = 0 to 14-16 kpc. The thick disc [Fe/H]-[Mg/Fe] ridge lines follow closely grouped parallel paths, supporting the idea that the thick disc did form from a well-mixed medium. However, the ridge lines present a small drift in [Mg/Fe], which decreases with increasing guiding radius. At sub-solar metallicity, the intermediate and outer thin disc [Fe/H]-[Mg/Fe] ridge lines follow parallel sequences shifted to lower metallicity as the guiding radius increases. We interpret this pattern, as the signature of a dilution of the inter-stellar medium from Rg~6 kpc to the outskirt of the disc, which occured before the onset of the thin disc formation. The APOGEE-AstroNN VAC provides stellar ages for statistically significant samples of thin disc stars from the Galactic centre up to Rg~14 kpc. An important result provided by this dataset, is that the thin disc presents evidence of an inside-out formation up to R_g~10-12 kpc.(Abridged)