Stellar Mergers or Truly Young? Intermediate-Age Stars on Highly-Radial Orbits in the Milky Way's Stellar Halo

TL;DR

This study analyzes the ages of highly-radial orbit halo stars linked to Gaia-Enceladus/Sausage, revealing a predominantly old population with a significant tail of intermediate-age stars, challenging current models of the Galaxy's merger history.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed age distribution of GES debris stars, highlighting the presence of intermediate-age stars and discussing implications for Galactic formation models.

Findings

Most GES debris stars are old, around 11.6 Gyr.

A tail of stars aged 6-9 Gyr exists among the debris.

Intermediate-age stars are unlikely to be artifacts of stellar mergers.

Abstract

Reconstructing the mass assembly history of the Milky Way relies on obtaining detailed measurements of the properties of many stars in the Galaxy, especially in the stellar halo. One of the most constraining quantities is stellar age, as it can shed light on the accretion time and quenching of star formation in merging satellites. However, obtaining reliable age estimates for large samples of halo stars is difficult. We report published ages of 120 subgiant halo stars with highly-radial orbits that likely belong to the debris of the \textsl{Gaia-Enceladus/Sausage}~(GES) galaxy. The majority of these halo stars are old, with an age distribution characterized by a median of 11.6~Gyr and 16$^{\rm th}$(84$^{\rm th}$) percentile of 10.5~(12.7)~Gyr. However, the distribution is skewed, with a tail of younger stars that span ages down to $\sim6$--$9$ Gyr. All highly-radial halo stars have chemical and kinematic/orbital quantities that associate them with the GES debris. Initial results suggest that these intermediate-age stars are not a product of mass transfer and/or stellar mergers, which can bias their age determination low. If this conclusion is upheld by upcoming spectro-photometric studies, then the presence of these stars will pose an important challenge for constraining the properties of the GES merger and the accretion history of the Galaxy.