The Atari Disk, a Metal-Poor Stellar Population in the Disk System of the Milky Way

TL;DR

This study identifies and characterizes a metal-poor stellar population in the Milky Way's disk, called the Atari disk, likely originating from an early dwarf galaxy accretion event, using chemo-dynamical analysis of SkyMapper and Gaia data.

Contribution

It introduces the Atari disk, a new metal-poor stellar component in the Milky Way, distinguished by its unique chemo-dynamical properties and likely accretion origin.

Findings

Identified 7,127 stars as part of the metal-weak thick disk.

Discovered a significant metal-poor component with 261 stars having { m[Fe/H]}<-2.0.

Proposed the name 'Atari disk' for this accretion-origin stellar population.

Abstract

We have developed a chemo-dynamical approach to assign 36,010 metal-poor SkyMapper stars to various Galactic stellar populations. Using two independent techniques (velocity and action space behavior), $Gaia$ EDR3 astrometry, and photometric metallicities, we selected stars with the characteristics of the "metal-weak" thick disk population by minimizing contamination by the canonical thick disk or other Galactic structures. This sample comprises 7,127 stars, spans a metallicity range of $-3.50<${\metal}~$<-0.8$, and has a systematic rotational velocity of $\langle V_\phi\rangle=154$\,km\,s$^{-1}$ that lags that of the thick disk. Orbital eccentricities have intermediate values between typical thick disk and halo values. The scale length is $h_{R}=2.48^{+0.05}_{-0.05}$\,kpc and the scale height is $h_{Z}=1.68^{+0.19}_{-0.15}$\,kpc. The metallicity distribution function is well fit by an exponential with a slope of $\Delta\log{\rm N}/\Delta\metal=1.13\pm0.06$. Overall, we find a significant metal-poor component consisting of 261 SkyMapper stars with \metal$<-2.0$. While our sample contains only eleven stars with {\metal}~$\lesssim-3.0$, investigating the JINAbase compilation of metal-poor stars reveals another 18 such stars (five have {\metal}$<-4.0$) that kinematically belong to our sample. These distinct spatial, kinematic and chemical characteristics strongly suggest this metal-poor, phase-mixed kinematic sample to represent an independent disk component with an accretion origin in which a massive dwarf galaxy radially plunged into the early Galactic disk. Going forward, we propose to call the metal-weak thick disk population as the Atari disk, given its likely accretion origin, and in reference to it sharing space with the Galactic thin and thick disks.