Exploring the Sagittarius stream with RR Lyrae Stars from Gaia Data Release 3

TL;DR

This study uses Gaia DR3 RR Lyrae stars to analyze the metallicity distribution and gradients in the Sagittarius stream, revealing insights into its formation history and stripping process.

Contribution

It provides new metallicity estimates and gradients for the Sgr stream using Gaia DR3 RR Lyrae stars, including the first detailed analysis of the far arm's bimodal metallicity distribution.

Findings

Mean metallicity of Sgr RRLs is -1.62 dex.

The far arm is the most metal-poor with -1.98 dex.

The far arm shows a bimodal metallicity distribution.

Abstract

The Sagittarius (Sgr) dwarf spheroidal galaxy is one of the most prominent satellites of the Milky Way (MW). It is currently undergoing tidal disruption, forming an extensive stellar stream that provides key insights into the assembly history of the MW halo. In this study we analyzed RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) in the Sgr stream provided in Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3), for which new estimates of photometric metallicities are available in the literature, and accurate distances were calculated using the reddening-free period-Wesenheit-metallicity ($PWZ$) relation. We determine the mean metallicity of RRLs in the Sgr stream to be ${\rm [Fe/H]}=-1.62 \pm 0.01$ dex. We measure a metallicity gradient as a function of stripping time from the Sgr progenitor of $0.05 \pm 0.02$ dex/Gyr, indicating that the metal-poor RRLs were stripped earlier during the accretion process. The far arm is found to be the most metal-poor structure of the Sgr stream, with a mean metallicity of ${\rm [Fe/H]}=-1.98 \pm 0.37$ dex, significantly lower than that of the leading ($-1.69\pm0.31$ dex) and trailing ($-1.64 \pm 0.28$ dex) arms. Our findings show that the RRLs in the far arm of the Sgr stream exhibit a bimodal metallicity distribution with peaks at [Fe/H]=$-2.4$ dex and $-1.7$ dex. The main body of the stream is the most metal-rich structure, with a mean metallicity of ${\rm [Fe/H]}=-1.58 \pm 0.31$ dex and a radial gradient of $-0.008 \pm 0.005$ dex/kpc. We find almost negligible metallicity gradients of $(-0.2 \pm 0.3)\times 10^{-3}$ dex/deg in the trailing arm and $(-1.0 \pm 0.5)\times 10^{-3}$ dex/deg in the leading arm, in agreement with previous studies. Finally, we investigate the bifurcation of the Sgr stream and conclude that the metallicity difference between the faint and bright branches is not confirmed based on the RRLs in our sample.