Metallicity-dependent kinematics and orbits in the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc

TL;DR

This study investigates the kinematic and orbital differences between metal-rich and metal-poor stars in the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc, revealing distinct origins and supporting inside-out formation models.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of stellar kinematics and metallicity gradients in the NSD, distinguishing populations and their likely origins with new orbital characterization.

Findings

Metal-rich stars have lower velocity dispersion and predominantly z-tube orbits.

Metal-rich stars show a metallicity gradient with higher metallicity towards the centre.

Metal-poor stars are more chaotic and likely originate from the Galactic bar or accreted clusters.

Abstract

The nuclear stellar disc (NSD) is a flat and dense stellar structure at the centre of the Milky Way. Previous work has identified the presence of metal-rich and metal-poor stars in the NSD, suggesting that they have different origins. The recent publication of photometric, metallicity, proper motion, and orbital catalogues allows the NSD stellar population to be characterised with unprecedented detail. We aim to explore the proper motions and orbits of NSD stars with different metallicities to assess whether they have different origins and to better understand the metallicity distribution in the NSD. We distinguished between metal-rich and metal-poor stars by applying a Gaussian mixture model, as done in previous work, and analysed the proper motions, orbits, and spatial distribution of stars with different metallicities. We find that metal-rich stars exhibit a lower velocity dispersion, suggesting that they trace a kinematically cooler component compared to metal-poor ones. Furthermore, z-tube orbits are predominant among metal-rich stars, while chaotic/box orbits are more common among metal-poor ones. We also find that metal-rich and metal-poor stars show a similar extinction and are present throughout the analysed regions. As a secondary result, we detected a metallicity gradient in the metal-rich population with higher metallicity towards the centre of the NSD and a tentative gradient for the metal-poor stars, which is consistent with previous studies that did not distinguish between the two populations. Our results suggest that metal-rich stars trace the NSD, whereas metal-poor ones are related to the Galactic bar and probably constitute Galactic bar interlopers and/or are NSD stars that originated from accreted clusters. The detected metallicity gradients aligns with the currently accepted inside-out formation of the NSD.