An extended stellar halo discovered in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal using Gaia EDR3

TL;DR

This study uses Gaia EDR3 data to identify an extended stellar halo in the Fornax dwarf galaxy, revealing a new component that extends far beyond its core and suggesting recent gas loss and a first infall scenario.

Contribution

The paper reports the discovery of an extended stellar halo in Fornax, significantly larger than previously known, using precise Gaia EDR3 data and star selection techniques.

Findings

Discovery of a stellar halo extending 5.4 kpc from Fornax center

The halo accounts for 10% of Fornax's stellar mass

No tidal features detected, implying a recent gas loss event

Abstract

We have studied the extent of the Red Giant Branch stellar population in the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy using the spatially extended and homogeneous data set from Gaia EDR3. Our preselection of stars belonging to Fornax is based on their proper motions, parallaxes and color-magnitude diagram. The latter criteria provide a Fornax star sample, which we further restrict by color and magnitude to eliminate contaminations due to either Milky Way stars or QSOs. The precision of the data has been sufficient to reach extremely small contaminations (0.02 to 0.3%), allowing us to reach to a background level 12 magnitudes deeper than the central surface brightness of Fornax. We discover a break in the density profile, which reveals the presence of an additional component that extents 2.1 degree in radius, i.e. 5.4 kpc, and almost seven times the half-light radius of Fornax. The extended new component represents 10% of the stellar mass of Fornax, and behaves like an extended halo. The absence of tidally elongated features at such an unprecedented depth (equivalent to $37.94\pm0.16$ mag ${\rm arcsec}^{-2}$ in V-band) rules out a possible role of tidal stripping. We suggest instead that Fornax is likely at first infall, and has lost its gas very recently, which consequently leads to a lack of gravity implying that residual stars have spherically expanded to form the newly discovered stellar halo of Fornax.