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| Paper: |
Fossil Signatures of Ancient Accretion Events in the Halo. |
| Volume: |
92, Formation of the Galactic Halo. . . . Inside and Out |
| Page: |
483 |
| Authors: |
Johnston, Kathryn V.; Bolte, Michael; Hernquist, Lars |
| Abstract: |
The role that minor mergers have played in the formation and structure of the Milky Way is still an open question, about which there is much debate. We propose the method of Great Circle Cell Counts (GC3) to identify and quantify signatures of accretion in surveys of halo stars. The method is tested on artificial halo distributions constructed from numerical simulations of accretion events in a Milky Way with a spherical halo. Our results suggest that if as few as 1% of the stars in a halo survey are accreted from the disruption of a single subsystem GC3 can recover the great circle associated with this debris. The dispersion in GC3 can also be used to detect the presence of structure characteristic of accretion in distributions containing a much smaller percentage of material accreted from any single satellite. |
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